sport news OLIVER HOLT: Simone Biles was the biggest winner in Tokyo because she took ...

sport news OLIVER HOLT: Simone Biles was the biggest winner in Tokyo because she took ...
sport news OLIVER HOLT: Simone Biles was the biggest winner in Tokyo because she took ...

Some people do not understand the Olympic Games. They think you need to have a gold medal draped around your neck to be a winner. 

They think you have to cross the line first, or win the most points, or jump the furthest, or swim the fastest, to be a winner. But those people are wrong. In fact, they could not be more wrong.

Some people will say there is sophistry in this argument but Simone Biles was the biggest winner in Tokyo last week because she finally took control of her life. 

Simone Biles decided to pull-out of her events at the Tokyo Olympics to prioritise herself

Simone Biles decided to pull-out of her events at the Tokyo Olympics to prioritise herself

Elite sport can be the best time of an athlete like Biles' life but it can beat them up as well

Elite sport can be the best time of an athlete like Biles' life but it can beat them up as well

This is a young woman who has been physically and mentally abused in the name of excellence, who has been betrayed and controlled. Last week, she stopped doing what other people wanted her to do and said: 'Enough.'

What could be more inspiring than that? What could be more of a victory than that? A victory that goes beyond the parameters of sport. This is a woman who is the only survivor of the crimes of the former USA gymnastics team doctor, Larry Nassar, still competing and this is her statement.

Struggling with the 'twisties', gymnastics' version of the yips, was part of a wider concern for her own mental health. Mental uncertainty in gymnastics comes at high risk but it felt as if what Biles did when she went public with her struggle and pulled out of the team event after one vault, empowered her more than any beam exercise or floor routine ever could.

Elite sport can be the best time of an athlete's life but it can beat them up, too. It can trap them in dysfunction. It can imprison them in the expectations of others. It can ruin them for the rest of their lives if they let it. 

Biles was favourite for gold but she's set an example that athletes can stop before they snap

Biles was favourite for gold but she's set an example that athletes can stop before they snap

Naomi Osaka's stances of mental health have also been a key development for athletes

Naomi Osaka's stances of mental health have also been a key development for athletes  

What's the point in a gold medal if all it leaves is emptiness and a blighted life? What's the point in a gold medal if all it leaves is a struggle to move on? That's not a victory.

Biles had the courage to break that chain when she walked off the floor at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre on Tuesday. And by doing what she did, she empowered other athletes to do the same. 

If they feel as if they are breaking, then they can stop before they snap. Biles, and Naomi Osaka, enabled that change.

I was there at the same arena on Thursday night to see Biles cheering on her team-mate Sunisa Lee, who won the women's all-around gold medal that Biles would have been favourite for if she had not pulled out. Lee was overcome with joy. She was a winner that night. So was Biles.

That sense of there being more than one victor in a race or a fight or a game is what draws people like me to the Olympics time and time and time again. Everyone has their own idea of what winning is and the Olympics allows us all to indulge our own interpretations of that in a way other events don't.

That is what allows even a Games as troubled and diminished as these Tokyo Olympics to lift us up and make our spirits soar. 'The essential thing in life,' Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympics said, 'is not conquering but fighting well'. And that remains.

A few hours before Biles wrestled back control on Tuesday evening, I was standing in a near-deserted mixed zone at the Makuhari Messe Hall, on the other side of Tokyo Bay, talking to Pita Taufatofua, the Tongan taekwondo athlete famous for his shirtless, copiously oiled appearances as his nation's flag-bearer at Olympic opening ceremonies.

Each athlete in Olympic events has their story and it's not just a medal that decides who wins

Each athlete in Olympic events has their story and it's not just a medal that decides who wins 

Taufatofua had just lost heavily in his first fight of the day. He had been beaten 24-3 by his

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