Those Dunking On Simone Biles Should Remember Julissa Gomez

Alexandra DeSanctis has offered a worthy defense of Simone Biles, and as Dan McLaughlin pointed out earlier, she withdrew from the women’s team gymnastics competition when it was clear she was suffering from aerial disorientation. “Toughing it out,” as some were calling for, would not be akin to, say, Willis Reed playing through a leg injury in the NBA finals. Losing track of where you are when attempting to do competitive gymnastics doesn’t just lose you points. It could be deadly. Those who have any doubt should recall the tragic story of Julissa Gomez, a young American gymnast who was a contender for the 1988 Olympics.

As the Los Angeles Times reported at the time:

Julissa Gomez, 15, lies in a coma in a Houston Hospital, her neck broken, her body paralyzed.

More than a month ago, the top-ranked American gymnast and Olympic hopeful boarded a plane with her peers for a meet in Tokyo. She returned, unconscious, by U.S. military transport, surrounded by doctors and her parents, Otilia and Ramiro Gomez, who had flown to Japan to be at their daughter’s side.

She suffered a spinal injury May 5 while practicing a vault at the World Sports Fair in Japan. It was a routine maneuver for a world-class gymnast–a round-off onto a springboard, a back handspring onto the vaulting horse–one Julissa had been executing for three years.

But this time, she missed. Her foot slipped on the springboard and she didn’t get the necessary lift, said her coach, Al Fong. She hit the the vaulting horse with her head.

Julissa lost consciousness and stopped breathing momentarily. When she regained consciousness, she couldn’t move. She was taken to a Tokyo University hospital and when her parents arrived from the United States, was able to communicate only by blinking her eyes. Soon afterward, she slipped into a coma.

The accident left Gomez a quadriplegic and she eventually died in 1991, at age 18, as a result of the injuries she sustained.

Biles is the most daring female gymnast who ever lived, flying 10-feet in the air — spinning, twisting, flipping  and turning — and then landing on two feet. Here she was just two months ago, making history with a dangerous vault:

There’s no way somebody should attempt to compete at the level she does without being in the right head space. Anybody who is demanding she should have just gutted through it hasn’t fully considered what that would mean. 

VIEW GALLERY: Tokyo Olympics Highlights