Show an ad over header. AMP

Simone Biles pulls out of team finals to focus on mental health

27 July 2021
Dan Ackermann

Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles pulled out of the women's gymnastics team finals on Tuesday to prioritize her mental health and well-being.

The latest: "At the end of the day, I have to do what's right for me and focus on my mental health, and not jeopardize my health and well-being," Biles told reporters in Tokyo. "That's why I decided to kind of take a step back and let them do their work, and they did it.

  • Biles said she's unsure whether she will compete Thursday in the individual all-around competition. "We're going to take it a day at a time. We have a little bit of a break for training, so that will be really nice to have a mental rest day."

What she's saying: "It's been really stressful this Olympic Games, just as a whole not having an audience, there are a lot of different variables going into it, ... I think we're just a little bit too stressed out, but we should be out here having fun and sometimes that's not the case," Biles said.

  • "Gymnastics isn't everything at the end of the day. There's still more to life than gymnastics so I'm not too worried about what happened," Biles said, per reporters in Tokyo. "I'm just trying to gear up for the next couple of days ahead."

State of play: Russian gymnasts, competing under the Russian Olympic Committee flag due to a doping ban, won the gold medal after Biles' withdrawal. Team USA won silver and Britain won bronze.

  • Biles left the competition area with a medical examiner after one rotation on the vault in which she faltered badly. Biles was replaced by Jordan Chiles and returned to the floor to cheer on her teammates.

Our thought bubble, via Axios' Jeff Tracy: When Kerri Strug missed most of her Olympic program in 1996 after injuring her ankle, no one questioned why. If Biles remains out of these Olympics, her supremely talented teammates will still have plenty of individual events to compete in for gold.

Editor's note: This story has been updated with new details and quotes from Biles.

Go deeper: Russia wins gold in women's gymnastics, U.S. takes silver

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

Section2

Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.