Simone Biles always wins.
USA Gymnastics would do well to remember what her competitors learned years ago — and will be reminded of Saturday, when the women’s competition at the world gymnastics championships begin. Biles can bend gravity to her will, and she has shown in recent months that that power is not limited to the competition floor.
With USA Gymnastics somehow still incapable of getting out of its own way two years after the Larry Nassar scandal began unfolding, its continued missteps making an already awful situation even worse, Biles has emerged as its most influential critic. The best decisions USA Gymnastics has made in recent months — closing the Karolyi ranch, getting rid of an interim CEO who had no business being hired in the first place — only came after prodding from the reigning Olympic champion.
“You have to stand up for what you believe in,” Biles said recently.
This is not a position Biles asked for or likely even wants. She is 21 years old. Her job is to be an athlete and she’s darned good at it, the greatest gymnast of her and every other generation.
Unless her bus somehow gets lost on the way to the arena in Doha, Biles will lead the Americans to their fourth consecutive world title, securing a spot at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics in the process, and then become the first woman to claim four all-around titles. Only Japan’s Kohei Uchimura, with his six world titles, will have more.
Biles is also one of the more than 350 women who have said they were abused by Nassar. It is long past time that USA Gymnastics looked out for her needs.
Yet that isn’t happening. Whether it’s simple ineptitude or concern about affecting the outcome of pending lawsuits, USA Gymnastics has repeatedly made decisions that are both tone-deaf and hurtful to the Nassar survivors, to say nothing of the current athletes, and there’s no indication anyone in charge has the good sense to recognize that.
So it is left to Biles to fill the leadership void, and she’s done it with the same great effect she’s had on the competition floor.
USA Gymnastics somehow thought it was a good idea to continue holding training camps at the Karolyi ranch, where some of the survivors said they were abused. Only when Biles said on Instagram that she, too, was a survivor and the idea of returning to the ranch “breaks my heart even more” did the federation close it down.
Former CEO Kerry Perry, who never encountered a situation she couldn’t bungle, responded with a meaningless word salad when asked if USA Gymnastics planned to do anything during the national championships to honor survivors. Later that day, Biles took the floor in a teal leotard, the color designated to honor sexual abuse survivors.
And when USA Gymnastics hired an interim CEO without either knowing or caring — I’m not sure which is worse — that she’d taken shots at Nike for its support of Colin Kaepernick, it was Biles who pointed out the obvious. A federation desperate for sponsors, particularly one that can provide, oh, say, apparel, has no business alienating anyone.
“I said what I said,” Biles said afterward. “Maybe after Doha, I’ll be open to more questions about that.”
Hear that USA Gymnastics?
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