Last month Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in US history, made history again. This time for landing the Yurchenko double pike vault.
The vault is complex and gravity defying. It’s beautiful to watch but considered so dangerous that no other woman has even attempted the move in competition. That means Simone Biles accomplished something no other gymnast has before.
Yet rather than lauding her skill, determination, and athleticism, Biles was penalized.
Despite the clear difficulty level of the actual vault, Biles received a provisional score of 6.6, a score similar to her previous routines.
How difficult is the move?
According to the NY Times, “To execute it, a gymnast first must launch herself into a roundoff back handspring onto the vaulting table, and then propel herself high enough to give herself time to flip twice in a pike position (body folded, legs straight) before landing on her feet.”
So, despite the difficulty the judges regarded it as equal to other vaults.
That rationale wasn’t lost on Biles.
“I feel like now we just have to get what we get because there’s no point in putting up a fight because they’re not going to reward it,” said Biles of the judging and the International Gymnastics Federation. “So, we just have to take it and be quiet.”
Unfortunately, this recent sanctioning of her skills is not a first for Biles. It’s yet another example of how her skill is often met with resistance instead of pomp and circumstance.
“They’re both too low and they even know it,” Biles said, referring to the scores for her beam dismount and the double-pike vault. “But they don’t want the field to be too far apart. And that’s just something that’s on them. That’s not on me.
“They had an open-ended code of points and now they’re mad that people are too far ahead and excelling.”
The justification for the low scoring by the judges often centers upon the notion that a low score will keep others from attempting this nearly impossible skill all in the name of the safety of the other athletes.
This, however, seems to be routine when it comes to Black women athletes who are exceptional at their sports and excel past their competition.
Punishing Black Sportswomen
When Black sportswomen excel, eyebrows raise, and allegations and changes typically follow.
Surya Bonaly is a former French figure skater who was one of only a few Black women to make it the highest levels in the sport. Bonaly won five European championships and nine French national titles. She is also known for performing a move banned in figure skating—the backflip—and she landed it on one foot. Though the move was banned in the sport, it is impossible to deny that it was, and remains, an exceptional feat.
While the move (oftentimes trivialized as “a trick”) may have been banned in 1976 when Bonaly was three years old, her landing it on one blade certainly didn’t help the case for it to be reincorporated into competition.
South African middle-distance runner Caster Semenya has faced an astonishing amount of backlash since winning gold in the 800m at the 2009 World Championships in Berlin, Germany. Her competitors declared that she was “unnatural,” and that her presence on the track was “unfair,”1, because of how badly she beat the competition. The questions surrounding her gender/sex identity have rarely been out of the public eye since her 2009 victory. Unless she agrees to take hormone suppressants that will lower her testosterone levels, it appears that her latest appeal to compete in the Olympic Games this summer in Tokyo will be denied.
Mind you, the science surrounding testosterone and athletic ability is regarded as inconclusive.
If Semenya wasn’t so fast would this even be an issue for the competition, IOC and the general public? I sincerely doubt it.
Serena Williams has been subjected to more drug tests than any of the other top American players in her field. Her treatment by some media outlets cannot be ignored either. Their reflections on her “muscular” build over the years is a common refrain heard by many Black sportswomen who combat whispers and rumors regarding their gender/sex identities.
The trifecta of gender questioning, drug testing, and being framed as an Angry Black woman is a shadow cast over the stellar career of Serena Williams. Nevertheless, she persevered and continues her ascent in sports.
For Biles, Bonaly, Semenya and Williams, being both Black and excellent has often led to their being penalized rather than celebrated and lauded. For Black sportswomen, excellence, talent, and skill are often confronted by questions, sanctions, speculation, and criticism.
Yet they persist.
And they dominate.
But they deserve better.
They deserve to be great without backlash. They deserve to be admired and respected without having to alter their attitudes or bodies to satisfy the needs and wants of the masses. Black women athletes have the right to be vulnerable without criticisms or verbal attacks.
Naomi Osaka shouldn’t be fined for wanting to protect her mental health. She shouldn’t be questioned by individuals like Billie Jean King for choosing not to speak with the media. Naomi’s first responsibility is to herself and her health.
We live in a world that asks Black femmes, girls, and women to shrink, alter, and bend themselves in order to be given a modicum of support. Athletes such as Michael Phelps are lauded for a body that has been said to give him a “competitive edge”. But Serena’s muscular physique remains an issue in the media’s lens.
Black femmes, women, and girls deserve better. But whether or not they receive it, they will not be stopped. Their excellence is too great.
Simone Biles stated that she will continue to demonstrate her talents regardless of the competition. When asked why she would continue to do so, her response epitomized the feeling of all the magical Black sportswomen out there doing their best.
“Because I can.”
So, either get on board or move aside. Black excellence, and Black Girl Magic cannot, and will not, be stopped.
1 Brown, L. E. C. Sporting Space Invaders: Elite Bodies in Track and Field, A South African Context. South African Review of Sociology.
