Time Magazine ranked its athlete of the year by a score of 4510, beating Sports Illustrated's score by 10. Tom Brady was chosen as the "Sportsperson of the Year" by Sports Illustrated. It is easy to see how they made that choice. He is 44 years old and still playing in the professional tackle football league. Brady won his first Super Bowl in his first year with the only team he has ever played for. It is a one-of-a-kind performance that deserves recognition.
She is something different. She is at an age past prime competition years in her sport. She felt an obligation to go to the Tokyo Olympics even though no one would fault her for not doing so. She and the United States Women's Gymnastics Team did not win the ultimate prize. What Biles taught us is atypical of the top athletes in the world. She told us that we need to be okay with people who aren't.
The average age of gymnasts has increased. At the Tokyo Games, it was just under 22 years old, but at the Rio games she was 19 years old. The average age of the women's All-around champion in the 11 Olympics prior to the Tokyo games was 16.7. She felt an obligation to compete in Tokyo, as the only survivor of former team doctor Larry Nassar's sexual abuse still on the U.S. team.
When Larry Nassar was in the media for two years, Simone Biles said she should have quit. It was too much. I was not going to allow him to take something I have worked for. I was not going to let him take that joy away from me. I pushed past that for as long as my body would allow.
The Indianapolis Star broke the story about Nassar's sexual abuse after the conclusion of the Rio games. Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison after more than 150 accusations were made in court. It is good that the system worked in this situation, but the trauma doesn't immediately leave the survivors with the bang of a gavel. Their humanity was violated. That can be helped by a prison sentence for their abuse, but in no way can it fix it.
With all that weighing on her, she still had the courage to go to the Olympics in the middle of a global epidemic, even though it wasn't a true Olympic experience. All came tumbling down when she started competing. She wasn't performing up to her usual standards, and during the team vault competition she landed so poorly, it looked like she got lost in the air.
That is what happened. She pulled herself out of the team competition and the Individual All- Around because of her illness. She owned the decision that was met with both praise and condemnation. She won a bronze medal on the balance beam in the games. She gave a statement in front of the congress about her experience of sexual abuse and urged the government to do everything in its power to prevent it from happening to children in the future.
Even though she didn't have the glory and hardware that Brady did, she still gave a much better performance in front of the entire world. The strength that was shown was through vulnerability.
She had to admit that the last five years were weighing on her. As badly as she wanted to show the world that Nassar's crimes against her would not stop her, she had to admit that she needed to heal more from what happened.
That is what it is to be a competitor. Even though she wasn't ready to win a gold medal, she owned it and didn't let any outside pressure force her to do something that would put her health and well-being at risk.
She taught us a lesson in taking back control of our bodies and that even the mightiest among us sometimes need to sit down when their heads are not in the right place. Time Magazine won with its athlete of the year choice, a great example that she set.
