"Felt I robbed the team"- When Simone Biles expressed concern about hurting team’s all-around score amid mental health struggles

American gymnast Simone Biles once expressed her feelings regarding her performance during the team event finals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Biles only participated in one rotation (vaults) and posted a score of 13.766.

On a personal note, Biles was going through a rough patch due to the twisties and has also revealed that she was battling several mental battles during this campaign, despite coming after the high of 2016 Rio, where she bagged four gold medals. Owing to this, the American gymnast was nervous after an unexpectedly low score for her standards in the vaults rotation during the team finals and was anxious about hurting her team's results.

In an interview in 2021, Biles said that before the competition, she was looking to go on the mat and enjoy the competition, but soon realized she was mentally not there. She further mentioned that by participating in the vaults, she let her team down by some points, leading to the USA finishing second during the competition. She said (via Time.com):

"I’ve never felt like this going into a competition before. I tried to go out, have fun and after warming up in the back I felt a little better, but once I came out here, I felt, no, the mental is not there. I need to let the girls do it and focus on myself. I felt I robbed the team of a couple tenths and they could be higher in the rankings"

Simone Biles and her team eventually managed a team score of 166.096 in the competition, only 3.432 points less than first-placed Russian Olympic Committee (169.528).

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Simone Biles shares her thoughts after joining a noble initiative for kids

Simone Biles during her beam balance final performance at the 2024 Paris Olympics (Image via: Getty Images)

Simone Biles expressed her thoughts after joining Make-A-Wish America in celebrating the Make-A-Wish month in April. The foundation mainly celebrates fulfilling the wishes of the needy and underprivileged children.

In an Instagram post uploaded on Friday, Biles shared that in her opinion, there is nothing more beautiful than the smile on a child's face after their wish has been fulfilled. She wrote:

"There is nothing more beautiful than the joy on a kid’s face when their wish has been granted. But you don’t have to be an Olympic gymnast to be a WishMaker. YOU have the power to change these kids’ lives."

Additionally, in her post, Simone Biles also urged the masses to come and join this noble initiative to change the lives of the children.