At U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials, combatting injuries goes beyond physical health

In the tunnels of Target Center last week, Olympic hopefuls, meet officials and one friendly dog bustled by during the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team trials.

Beacon, a fluffy golden retriever, had a job to do, just like everyone else. Two years ago, the team’s wellness room coordinator, Tracey Callahan Molnar, suggested therapy dogs to USA Gymnastics President Li Li Leung. And ever since, Beacon has been welcomed by the team.

At the trials, USA Gymnastics also had psychologists on-site for gymnasts who did not make the Olympic team and a private space where those gymnasts could spend time with their families. Two of the meet’s biggest stars, Simone Biles and St. Paul’s Suni Lee, were quick to mention therapy as a key to their success.

And when three gymnasts — Skye Blakely, Shilese Jones and Kayla DiCello — suffered injuries that forced them to withdraw, athletes’ mental health became an even more pressing subject.

In a highly mental sport like gymnastics, physical and mental health are often inseparable for both the injured athletes and the teammates they train with, day in and day out. The high-flying nature of their skills poses physical risks, and the pressure of perfecting a pass or connection without judges’ deductions can be staggering, especially with a ticket to the Olympics on the line.

“This is the hardest meet we’ll ever do in our lives,” two-time Olympian Jordan Chiles said.

But mental health and athlete well-being have not always been the primary focuses of the gymnastics world. Seven-time Olympic medalist Biles faced public criticism when she withdrew from Tokyo’s team and all-around competitions with “the twisties,” a mental block that causes gymnasts to lose a sense of control over their body, posing injury risk.

“Tokyo gave us that opportunity to open up that stage for that talk,” Biles said. “I think athletes are now a little more in tune, and we trust what our gut is saying and just taking mental health a little bit more serious.”

After DiCello was helped off the floor after the first vault of trials, Lee wiped away tears and followed up her friend and roommate with the next vault attempt, a 13.525. Her score the second night was, understandably, higher, at 14.100.

“It was really hard on my mental health,” Lee said. “I had to meet with my therapist yesterday and try and get my mind right because it was just so devastating to see a couple of my friends get taken out of this huge competition.”

Lee, Biles and Joscelyn Roberson, an alternate for Paris, all said they leaned on their teammates at trials to stay grounded after seeing friends get injured. And when Biles was interviewed on Target Center’s jumbotron after winning the all-around competition, her mention of therapy received a swell of applause from the crowd.

“[Biles] has honestly put me in a position to understand what it’s like to be an athlete in your sport and also a person as well,” Chiles said about her teammate.

Lee specifically cited team doctor Marcia Faustin’s help after being diagnosed with an incurable kidney disease in 2023 and told she might not compete again. That was all while coming back from the Olympic high of an individual all-around gold medal in Tokyo. When asked about her goals for Paris, Lee started her answer by softly reminding herself to “manage expectations.”

“After I got sick, [my mind] wasn’t in it for the Olympics. I just wanted to be healthy again,” Lee said. “The past couple months, I’ve been trying to put myself first and just really think of myself.”

The gymnasts headed to Paris make up the oldest and most decorated U.S. women’s gymnastics team in Olympic history. Chiles said the female gymnasts skewing older has been a part of “the dynamic, the culture, everything like that switching around” and USA Gymnastics understanding its athletes more.

Historically in gymnastics, young athletes have been launched into Olympic stardom before being able to vote — or, in the case of this year’s youngest U.S. gymnast, 16-year-old Hezly Rivera, before she’s even learned to drive. At age 22, three-time Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman was nicknamed the “grandma” of the 2016 gymnastics team.

While joking about her own early bedtime, Biles apologized for Raisman’s nickname on Sunday. At 27, Biles is now the oldest female gymnast to represent the U.S. since the 1950s.

Leung also noted that three injuries in one competition are cause for pausing and reevaluating the pace and spacing of competitions after the Paris Olympic Games.

“What we will do is take a look at the model and do some analysis and debriefing from this event and figure out what the best model is for athletes and make sure we’re putting the athletes’ health as a priority going forward,” Leung said.

After Blakely ruptured her Achilles at training on Wednesday, Roberson said she “looked at Simone so fast, and I was like, ‘I can’t handle this. I need to go away.’ ” She had withdrawn from the team final at last year’s world championships after injuring her own ankle in vault warmups.

“That feeling is unlike any other,” she said. “I don’t wish it on my worst enemy.”