“It broke my heart…nobody is perfect” – When Michael Phelps opened up about Simone Biles’ withdrawal from Tokyo Olympics due to…see more

Following Simone Biles’ withdrawal from the Tokyo Olympics due to twisties, Michael Phelps related to the gymnast’s mental health struggles and claimed it broke his heart. The 23-time gold medalist is a firm advocate of mental health.

Phelps and Biles competed together at the 2016 Rio Olympics. While the former served as flag bearer for Team USA during the opening ceremony, the latter held the honor during the closing ceremony.

The swimmer bagged five medals at the Games and retired afterward while Biles took home four gold medals in her debut Olympics before vying for more in Tokyo five years later. However, while performing a vault routine during the team finals, she lost her balance in the air and nearly fell.

It turned out that the American gymnast was suffering from twisties, a mental health condition where gymnasts lose idea of their position in the air. While Biles withdrew from the team finals, her withdrawal sparked a conversation over the importance of taking care of athletes’ mental health. Phelps related to Biles’ struggles and said it broke his heart.

“It broke my heart but also, if you look at it, mental health over the last 18 months is something a lot of people are talking about,” he said in an interview with NBC in October 2021

He further encouraged Biles’ call for help and emphasized that she was also a human being.

“We’re human beings. Nobody is perfect. It’s okay to not be okay, to go through ups and downs. The biggest thing is we all need to ask for help. I can say personally it was very challenging. It was hard for me to ask for help. I felt like I was carrying, as Simone said, the weight of the world on my shoulders. It’s a tough situation,” Michael Phelps added.

The 28-time Olympic medalist also hoped the gymnast’s withdrawal would serve as a wake-up call for the world.

“I hope this is an eye-opening experience, an opportunity for us to jump on board and blow this mental health thing even more wide open. It is so much bigger than we could ever imagine.”
Simone Biles did make a comeback later and won a bronze medal in the balance beam finals. At the 2024 Paris Olympics, she bagged four medals, three gold and one silver.

Following his retirement from the sport after the 2012 London Olympics, Michael Phelps struggled with depression and was contemplating suicide at one point in 2014. Opening up about his struggles later in an interview with the Today show in 2018, he claimed he didn’t leave his room for several days.

“I was so down on myself. I didn’t have any self-love and quite honestly, I just didn’t want to be alive. It was a really, really, really crazy time for me and I didn’t want to see anybody, because for me, I saw myself as letting so many people down and me, myself in particular, and that’s hard to carry,” he said.

“And I think over those three or four days, where I didn’t want to leave my room, I didn’t want to talk to anybody, I finally realized that I can ask for help and it’s OK to not be OK and for me, that’s what changed my life,” Michael Phelps added.

Phelps made a comeback later at the 2016 Rio Olympics, winning six medals including five golds to put curtains on the greatest Olympic career of all time.