This is Hidden Brain, I'm Shankar Vedanthan.

At the Olympic Games in 2021, one athlete arrived in Tokyo

with a mountain of expectations on her four foot eight inch frame.

Five medals in real, four of them gold,

and could do even better than that this time around here in Tokyo.

If you don't think that that's hard, then you really don't understand gymnastics.

People didn't just expect how to win gold medals in gymnastics.

The expected magic.

So I mean, she has just set herself so far apart from the rest of the field

and not just on the condition for it.

It's not a file representing the atmosphere.

And vials pursuit of history starts tonight.

Four days into the games, Simone Biles pulled out of the competition.

I've just never felt like this going into a competition before

and I tried to go out here and have fun and warm up in the back when a little bit better.

But then once I came out here, I was like, no, mental is not there.

The world was stunned.

An athlete with seemingly otherworldly powers was struggling.

From the outside looking in, it seemed hard to understand.

And it raised a question.

If a world champion can be toppled by these emotions,

what does it mean for the rest of us?

...