There have been some marvelously surprising ups - 'way ups! - and downs for the talented young people who are competing in the "Pandemic Olympics" in Tokyo, proving that it's risky indeed to put all one's bets on the lead horse, based on her or his previous races.
Cruel fate can intervene, and has, to defeat some of history's greatest athletes. One of these is the intrepid Simone Biles, who suffered a textbook case of "the twisties", in competition and withdrew from the games with her legs, spine and dignity intact. This sudden disorientation of body and space is no joke but a blip in the odd combination of thought and performance which plagues every major athlete in any sport.
Following a years-long history of stellar gymnastics performed on the bar and mat in significant competitions, Biles has long been perceived as the gold standard for gymnastics skill and victory, but the savvy Russian coaches saw a loophole: she was too good, for too long, not to have an Achilles' heel - a vulnerable spot in the mind-to-body aspect of competition. What was it?
If we look at the physics of what Biles had achieved in patterning her muscles, eyes, brain and balance to a tightly connected sequence of success, the keyword is "focus". Somewhere, somehow, hers was broken, and the connection shorted out. Knowing she had fallen short of the goal before a huge public audience, she told the truth and withdrew from further competition at the Games, saying it felt as if the whole world were on her shoulders.
The load was, on this night, too much to carry. Miss Biles is a small, compact person, with a genetic muscle structure that is ideal for sport, ballet or live-action movies.
At the top tier of global sports achievements, there is a smooth internal "corridor" of energy flow, emanating from a practiced deep-brain reservoir of consciousness to the flawless execution of a physical task. Miss Biles has demonstrated her mastery of this neural pattern many times - but something distracted, and grounded out the energy flow, when she was vaulting in mid-air and listening internally to the signals for smooth landing.
A connection was off, just enough to produce dreaded disorientation in mind-body, letting in a sliver of the "what if?" doubt she had mastered many times and signaling that this was not the time for heroics. Like the unfortunate Icarus of Greek mythology, from which modern Olympics competitions derive, she could no longer fly, at least on this day.
To her great credit, she accepted this with grace, knowing that if she tried to force-feed an internal communication link that had shorted out in mid-air, she risked permanent disability with zero gain for her intrepid USA teammates. And she went on to show her critics exactly why she cut short her routine and escaped being maimed or paralyzed - Miss Biles does NOT have the outsized ego common to many competitors in professional sport.
She was willing to accept responsibility for her brain-body disaster, and There were no whining excuses, but a disappointed statement of fact. On this night, when the guidance system connecting deep brain patterning with physical movement had broken down, she avoided disaster by immediately recognizing it and saying so.
There are worse things than losing at a global competition - spinal fracture and early death being among these. In failing to medal, Miss Biles has secured her place in gymnastics history and in the hearts of thousands of little girls around the world, as an example of what an athlete's character can do, when her body cannot. Bravo! Smart money here is betting that this never happens to her again.
Linda Berry is a Northsider.
