Simone Biles is poised to be a major draw for viewers at this year’s Olympic Games in Paris. But new Netflix documentary, Simone Biles: Rising, goes beyond the feats that cemented her as a gymnastic legend. It explores the pressure she has performed under, the personal challenges she has overcome and offers a glimpse into the demanding realities of life as an elite athlete. The two-part documentary analyses Biles’ decision to prioritise her mental and physical health by withdrawing from the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. It includes interviews with Black female gymnasts who came before her and were often pressured to compete under similar circumstances without the agency to make the choices she did. While Biles’ decision was initially met with controversy, she ultimately garnered significant support from fans. The response marks a positive shift in sporting culture: prioritising wellbeing is more common and Black female athletes are advocating for themselves.
It hasn’t always been this way. Due to misogynoir, Black female athletes face a disproportionate amount of hypercriticism from spectators, commentators and even sporting bodies. Athletes like Gwen Berry, a Team USA hammer thrower, have previously spoken out about systemic racism and bias in sports. Berry was harshly reprimanded after turning away from the flag and wearing a T-shirt reading “activist athlete” during the national anthem at the 2020 US Olympic trials.
Naomi Osaka’s choice to prioritise her mental health by skipping press conferences during the 2021 French Open led to significant backlash. She was fined and faced threats of expulsion for breaching tournament rules, and critics accused her of unprofessionalism. To pile on, the French Open mocked Naomi’s mental state on Twitter (now X).
These experiences, shared by many other Black women athletes, highlight the intense pressure and scrutiny they face in the public eye — especially when they dare to speak up for their own sake. It has exposed the lack of empathy for Black women in sports struggling with their mental health and highlighted the problematic relationship between these athletes, the media, and governing sports bodies that often fail to protect Black women.
As Rising details, competing in an environment that has been historically hostile to Black women can be challenging — even if you’re lauded as the “greatest of all time” and even if you’re able to do what other athletes can’t. In sports, like life, Black women’s ability to routinely excel isn’t protection from undue criticism. “People just, like, put you on these pedestals,” Biles shared in the documentary, “and I’m just, like, begging to be human.”
For fans and media alike, it can be difficult to separate the human from the athlete (who can push the limits of what’s humanly possible). However, because Biles pushed for widespread empathy, she was given the space and time she needed to make a strong comeback — in many ways, she’s a self-advocacy success story. Yet, Biles’ documentary shows how her predecessors weren’t given the same grace.
We can’t underestimate the importance of community in sport and its impact on Black women’s confidence, self-determination and self-advocacy.
Black female gymnasts, such as Dominique Dawes and Betty Okino, endured physical and mental pain as young athletes. As they were pressured to push through injuries and emotional strain, their psychological well-being was often overlooked. This issue is not unique to gymnastics; in tennis, Mardy Fish stepped away from the sport due to mental health struggles. At the height of Fish’s career, as recently as 2010, discussing mental health publicly was still stigmatised. This forced many athletes to suffer in silence, a topic explored in his Netflix documentary, Untold: Breaking Point. His decision to speak out about his experience helped show that mental health is now increasingly recognised as crucial to an athlete’s overall performance and wellbeing.
The shift in attitude that has created a safer environment for Black women to advocate for themselves didn’t happen on its own. Although there’s still some way to go, support from the Black community itself has helped massively.
For example, in April 2021, Angel Reese, then a college basketball star and now a WNBA player, shared her candid post-game emotions and comments after losing to the Iowa Hawkeyes. She spoke about the death threats, over sexualisation, and online bullying she had been experiencing all season and the emotional toll it had taken. She was rightly proud of herself for playing under these personal circumstances. However, her bravery was harshly criticised by commentator Emmanuel Acho, who called her a coward and insinuated she was childish. He said in a video posted YouTube, “When you take an L, you just gotta take it on the chin. Nobody mourns when the villain catches an L.”
Despite Acho’s comments, Reese received overwhelming support from other Black sports commentators, celebrities, and fans on social media demonstrating a collective determination to protect and uplift Black women.
Emmanuel Acho later admitted that he was humbled, after receiving calls from people like Bozoma St. John, former CMO of Netflix, and US TV personality, Stephen A. Smith. They reprimanded him and educated him on the damage caused by unfairly criticising a Black woman for speaking up about her mental health.
While the incident highlights the harmful stereotypes that force Black female athletes to suppress their emotions, optimistically, it also shows our community’s commitment to challenge these expectations.
There is also a strong sense of solidarity and sisterhood among Black female athletes, who naturally relate to each other’s experiences—a theme highlighted in Rising. Today, there are more Black women in gymnastics and many emerging stars following in Biles’ footsteps, a stark contrast to when she started in the sport and was often the only Black girl in the gym. Biles’ now sees herself as a “big sister” in the sport and actively provides positive encouragement and mentorship to these rising athletes.
In a similar vein, Serena and Venus Williams, trailblazers in tennis, experienced relentless racism and sexism during their careers. Despite these challenges, they spoke out and continued to perform at the highest level, earning their place among the greatest athletes of all time. They have also made a deliberate effort to mentor other Black women in the sport. Players like Coco Gauff and Naomi Osaka credit them as mentors and part of their support network.
We can’t underestimate the importance of community in sport and its impact on Black women’s confidence, self-determination and self-advocacy. WNBA player Ty Young and swimmer Lia Neal discussed how building a community with other Black women has empowered them to speak out against unfair treatment, knowing they have each other’s support. For Neal, this sense of solidarity inspired her to create Swimmers for Change, a platform dedicated to raising awareness about inequities in swimming and fundraising for charities supporting Black communities. This network has given these women the opportunity to advocate for themselves and drive meaningful change in their respective sports.
The journey to equity for Black women in sports has been challenging but self-advocacy and steadfast support from the Black community has been pivotal in changing the landscape of sports.
In her documentary, Biles’ speaks to the importance of having fun while competing — and as we await to see her 2024 Olympic bid, her fans can only hope that her beloved sport continues to be a source of her happiness.
It’s inspiring to see how Black female athletes, through speaking out, are making significant strides in improving sports culture. They remind us that as we cheer on the athletes this Olympic Games in Paris, we all have a role in creating an environment where joy is at the forefront of both spectating and competing.
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