This is the Morning Win. For the next couple of weeks, we’ll be writing each weekday morning about the Tokyo Olympics. Subscribe to get irreverent and incisive sports stories, delivered to your mailbox every morning. Charles Curtis is filling in for Andy Nesbitt.
By now, it should be certain to everyone that Simone Biles stepping away from the Olympic gymnastics competitions for now was, unquestionably, the right move.
The legendary gymnast is dealing with what’s known as “the twisties,” in which athletes in the sport lose control and awareness of where they are mid-air. And in a sport like gymnastics, that can be deadly.
Biles took to Instagram to discuss what she was dealing with further, and it should hammer home the point once again: The twisties are no joke, and the move to stop competing is one that’s what she needs to not seriously injure herself.
Per USA TODAY Sports, she posted two videos in which she struggled to complete twists while landing on safe surfaces, ones she wouldn’t be landing on in competition. The videos were deleted, but her Q&A in her Stories wasn’t.
“I seriously cannot comprehend how to twist,” she wrote. “It’s honestly petrifying trying to do a skill but not having your mind & body in sync.”
“Literally can not tell up from down,” she said in another post. “It’s the craziest feeling ever. Not having an inch of control over your body.”
That’s all you need to know. This isn’t something she can just shake off and move on from. And while no one should question her to begin with, any and all doubts should be erased.
Here’s hoping she gets well soon, no matter when that is.
Quick hits: NBA Draft winners and losers … a lovely swimming moment … Steve Spurrier took a shot at Texas … and more.
— The NBA Draft was Thursday night, so here are the winners and losers.
— Check out this heartwarming moment when South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker broke the 200 breakstroke world record.
— Steve Spurrier zinged Texas about leaving the Big 12.
— The Olympic baseball bullpen cart is the best.