PARIS– When Naomi Osaka raises her racket on the red clay courts of Roland Garros during the Paris Olympics later this month will represent more than just high-stakes competition for the tennis star.
For Osaka, a four-time Grand Slam champion, it is an important step in her journey after returning to tennis earlier this year after taking time off to prioritize her mental health and giving birth to her daughter.
Osaka will join gymnastics icon Simone Biles and track and field star Sha’Carri Richardson on the Olympic stage. These Black athletes at the height of their careers have been open about mental health, public criticism and other personal struggles. Osaka and Biles needed time away from their respective sports to prioritize their mental health. Richardson returned to competition after a highly scrutinized ban from athletics.
They all returned to the world’s biggest stage, displaying different levels of vulnerability. Their different but similar stories give viewers a unique picture of black women.
“I always think about this: We weren’t born playing our sport,” Osaka recently told the Associated Press. “We were born the same way as everyone else. I wasn’t born holding a racket. We are human first and we are athletes for a living.”
That idea is often forgotten when it comes to Black female athletes, who find themselves at the dark intersection of racism and sexism, said Ketra Armstrong, professor of sports management and director of the Center for Race and Ethnicity in Sports at the University of Michigan.
“It’s incredibly important that they are uplifted in this way,” Armstrong said, “because I think it’s helping people reimagine what black women are and who they are.”
Biles withdrew from the all-around gymnastics competition at the Tokyo Games to focus on her well-being after what she described like feeling the “weight of the world” on your shoulders.
After a two-year hiatus, Biles, 27, proved as dominant in her return to the international stage in 2023 as she was at her first Olympics in 2016. She won the individual all-around title at the world gymnastics championships in October. and breezed through the U.S. Olympic Trials last month.
“Most athletes are prepared to win,” Armstrong said. “They’ve been winning all their lives. And a lot of times in sports, they know how to take a day off. And I think what we’re seeing is they’re realizing that even when life intersects with sports, it’s It’s okay to take a break.”
Osaka and Biles’ return to the Olympics is important for creating space for women who look like them to be equally vulnerable, said Victoria Jackson, a sports historian and associate clinical professor of history at Arizona State University, while “also it forces a wider culture to accept them for who they are, beyond what they do in their sport.
Jackson said the trio’s journeys show a quality of leadership innate to Black women, who are often seen as invincible. As a result, they take on additional pressure and adopt “bigger than themselves” missions.
“They shouldn’t be in a situation where they should feel like this is expected of them,” she said. “I think that’s part of it too. How many generations of black women have to… recognize that they are taking on something to make the world a better place for people like them and everyone else too?
“It seems like there should be an end point at some point. We’re still asking a lot of black female athletes.”
This phenomenon is not limited to athletes.
“Most Black women you talk to feel a similar weight on their shoulders because we feel like we are the most overlooked and disrespected people in this country,” said Shaneka Stanley, a senior human resources consultant based near Chicago.
Stanley also cares for his son, stepdaughter, elderly parents and brother, who is mentally disabled.
“I am all women to all people in my life,” Stanley said. “I get tired, but I put this cape on every day.”
Richardson was expected to be a breakout star in Tokyo before a positive test for marijuana at the 2021 Olympic Trials. Richardson later said he smoked marijuana to cope with his mother’s recent death, but that didn’t stop the ridicule that followed the sprinter’s 30-day suspension from the sport.
Richardson’s name was suddenly mentioned in broad debates about race, justice and long-standing anti-doping rules.
Tarlan Chahardovali, an assistant professor in the Department of Sport and Entertainment Management at the University of South Carolina, said she wonders if the criticism Richardson faced would apply to a white runner in his position.
“I think the condition of brown and black women is much more difficult,” said Chahardovali.
Now, Richardson has a second chance at Olympic glory after one of the most dominant seasons in track and field this year. She will be the favorite in the 100 meters after winning the race in 10.71 seconds at the US track trials last month.
During your returnRichardson spoke repeatedly about resilience.
“The message is basically to understand and have a deeper love and deeper care for the talent that I have been given,” Richardson said. “And I take advantage of that, I nurture it… and then I can compete and perform when I show up on the track.”
When Biles, Osaka and Richardson took a step back in their careers, “I was really proud of them for living in their truth,” said Marisa Tatum-Taylor, a DEI manager at a large data company. “…I hope women around the world get the message that sometimes, to show up, you have to put yourself first.”
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Associated Press writer Claire Savage and AP sports writers Howard Fendrich and Eddie Pells contributed to this report.
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