By admin 
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) betrayed her ignorance about sports as she attempted to engage with Simone Biles amid the gymnast’s online clash with right-wing activist Riley Gaines.
“Honey, if biological men competed in women’s gymnastics, odds are no one would know your name,” Mace wrote on X in response to Biles’ post calling out Gaines for targeting a transgender high school athlete.
But people were quick to point out a glaring issue with Mace’s claim, namely that it ignores the particular skills and attributes that help athletes like Biles thrive in women’s gymnastics ― as well as the extent of the seven-time Olympic gold medalist’s talent.
Samuel Phillips, a student athlete on the University of Illinois Men’s Gymnastics team, told HuffPost that this kind of claim can only come from people who “clearly don’t watch or know about the sport of gymnastics.”
“What makes gymnastics unique is that men’s and women’s gymnastics are realistically two different sports,” he explained. “It’s not like track and field or swimming where you have men and women perform the same distance races within the same length pool or track. These are two different sports with completely different events and skills. The only shared events are floor and vault, while the men have the pommel horse, rings, parallel bars and high bar and the women have uneven bars and beam.”
He pointed to a video from former U.S. men’s national gymnastics team member Ian Gunther that breaks down the key differences and overall issue with Mace’s argument.
In the video, Gunther notes that women’s gymnastics “is more lower-body dominant and emphasizes flexibility and artistry,” compared to the more upper-body strength and power-focused events in men’s gymnastics.
Events like beam and uneven bars require graceful movements, flow and balance. Women’s agility, flexibility and lighter builds also work in their favor in the sport. The scoring system in gymnastics is also rather subjective.
“Even on the shared event floor, women have turn and leap elements that the men do not have,” Phillips said, adding that a male gymnast would likely have a hard time if he tried to compete in women’s gymnastics.
Indeed, there are many videos of male gymnasts attempting various skills and moves in women’s gymnastics, and let’s just say, it’s entertaining …
And as for Mace’s specific claim that “no one would know” Simone Biles’ name if she had to compete against men, that one also seems dubious.
“Simone Biles’ level of tumbling is superb,” Phillips said. “Her power and high difficulty throughout her whole career has always been a favorable and awe-inspiring sight for the men.”
He touted her use of skills deemed high-value in the men’s gymnastics code of points, like her triple-double on floor, and said he believes her performances at certain Olympics and World Championships could have earned her medals in the sport of men’s gymnastics as well.
“It’s not such a far-off thought when she competes in a vault ― Yurchenko double pike ― of harder value than a majority of the U.S. men’s national team and other countries for that matter,” Phillips added. “And when you see the tweet ‘Is Simone Biles willing to compete against Brody Malone on vault? Until yes, she needs to STFU.’ … you have to laugh. It’s evidence that they don’t watch the sport or care to do research.”
He also feels too many people ignored an important aspect of Biles’ response to Gaines, which she has since clarified in a follow-up post.
“What I liked about Simone’s tweet and felt like other people ignored was that she called for work to be done to find ways to include transgender people in sport,” Phillips said.
“That’s all we are asking for: empathy and to take a step back, look at the situation and ask ourselves, ‘OK, how can we go about this and what are some ideas we have to make this work in an honest, safe, and loving way for everyone? How can we practice inclusion to create a greater sports environment?’” he added. “The minute we do that as a country, is the minute, I think, we will finally be on our way to a more unified and loving sports and community environment.”