How two petite Black women made Olympic history

The Paris Olympics are almost over. The armchair athletes will have to wait four more years to once again become experts in everything from weightlifting to taekwondo. Although today’s armchair athletes are better described as bus, office or deckchair athletes. By having a screen in our hand every minute of the day, our consumption of the fleeting has become instantaneous and repetitive — a point that has been noted in these Games, the most digitally connected in history.

But of course, watching jumps and somersaults is not very compatible with work life, and being constantly tuned in to the Games takes its toll on us. Americans have confessed as much: one in four admits that their productivity has dropped since the Olympic cauldron was lit via hot air balloon on July 26. And NBC, the network that broadcasts the events in the U.S., is taking it seriously: “We set a goal to make America unproductive all day long,” executive producer of NBC Olympics Production, Molly Solomon, told Reuters. NBC paid $7.65 billion in media rights, so unproductiveness suits them just fine.

We are all unproductive. Because who can do even half of their work with Simone Biles and her prodigious 142 centimeters zipping around the uneven bars, or with the 45-kilo Rebeca Andrade jumping flawlessly on the floor to the first chords of Run the World (Girls) by Beyoncé. Beyond the pole vaulter who unfortunately missed the finals after his manhood tipped the bar and the Turkish gentleman who shoots pistols with one hand in his pocket and some pharmacy earplugs, the stars of the Paris Games are these petite women who have not stopped smiling and waving to each other.

It is still amazing to see Biles, year after year (please stay until Los Angeles 2028), and now Andrade, create movements with their bodies that no one could even fathom. But it is even more amazing to see how these young women, who do not speak the same language, admire each other and, what’s more, do so publicly. They communicate with gestures, smiles and applause. Of course, they try to out do one another — they are elite athletes after all — but they do so in the purest form of the Games, from admiration. It’s a way of finally understanding women’s sport in a healthy, logical way. Olympic sisterhood.

Three Black women took the podium after the floor event, sharing medals and admiration. This admiration reached the press room, where the U.S. called the Brazilian “an icon.” Neither of Biles nor Andrade has had it easy, and they both know it. They have staked their lives for this, and their unique achievements have captured the globe. The world loves the new Biles, smiling after her stormy experiences in Tokyo, and the perky Andrade. Watching their replays, their memes or how they send each other kisses from our little glass screens is the true sport of the summer.

Two young women have become a trending topic for being able to normalize issues that until a few years ago were not discussed in sport, let alone at the Olympics. Simone Biles, 27, like her teammate Suni Lee, have made it clear that mental health is as important or more than physical health, and that you have to stop when you reach your limit. The U.S. women’s gymnastic team even had a dog, Beacon, the star of X, to give them emotional support. It is refreshing for these issues to be normalized in such a televised mega-event, where social media scrutiny is constant.

Rebeca Andrade, 25, has climbed her own mountains, beyond overcoming poverty in her native Guarulhos. She has not straightened her hair to compete, as so many Black women have been doing for decades in pursuit of a more Westernized image. Instead, she keeps her curls and braids in a bun that resists jump after jump. While she prepares for the competition, she thinks about the recipes she will prepare back home. She needs glasses, as was clear when she struggled to see on the scoreboard that she was winning a gold medal. In an interview she said, laughing, that she is not comfortable with contact lenses, and that she cannot see anything when she stands on the balance beam. So she gets off the beam and puts on her nerdy glasses and makes little heart symbols for spectators who, far from laughing at her, applaud her gold-winning normality.

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