Introducing The Next Generation Of Leaders And Thinkers

“The Final Five” and the Girlhood We Need

Art by Em Steinkellner.

20:15 BRT, August 21st, inaugurates the “curtain call” for the 2016 Summertime Olympics, accommodated by Rio de Janerio, Brazil (“2016 Summer Olympics Closing Ceremony”). For seventeen galvanizing daylights, we have internationally been perched at the cliff of our sofa cushions in anticipation, in jeopardy of tottering belly up, scrutinizing our fair-haired athletic prodigies throughout swimming, diving, wrestling, tennis, volleyball, basketball—name it and it has been participated in.

However, notably, gymnastics has squalled the assiduity of its audience, ensorcelling with its POC diversity and transcendence, as well as its unadulterated skillfulness.

Composed of 2012 London Olympic veterans Gabrielle Douglas and Alexandra Raisman, and seasoned gymnasts Simone Biles, Laurie Hernandez, and Madison Kocian, the “Final Five” has accumulated record-setting scorings and cumulative medal counts.

At the palpitating heart of their superlative competition, is, in fact, the encouragement, inspiritment, and consolidated sisterhood of the unitary gymnasts.

To illustrate, Simone Biles—America’s dynamo sweetheart and four-time US gold medalist in the Women’s vault, floor exercise, and team and individual all-around, as well as a US bronze medalist in Women’s beam—has been appointed to convey the United States’ flag for this eventide’s closing ceremony. In rejoinder, Kocain—US silver medalist in the Women’s uneven bars, and US gold medalist in the Women’s team all-around—tweeted, “I’m so excited @Simone_Biles gets to be the flag bearer for [the] closing ceremony! You deserve it[!]” Ensuingly, Raisman—three-time Olympic champion, and six-time Olympic medalist—quoted the tweet, responding with, “RETWEET as @lzhernandez02 would say. Love [you,] super human girl[!]”

Moreover, upon the televised airing of the Women’s individual all-around, Raisman and Biles were recurrently recorded embracing one another within their unsurpassed exhilaration. Oftentimes, following their vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise performances, they would breathlessly compliment their “opponent’s” accomplishments.

Hernandez—US silver medalist in the Women’s beam, and US gold medalist in the Women’s team all-around—was recognized amidst the rambunctious amphitheater applauding and jitterbugging along to Biles’ floor exercise, clamoring and assortment of, “C’mon, Simone! You got it!”

Douglas—three-time US Olympic gold medalist in the Women’s team and individual all-around—who albeit did not contend in the Women’s individual all-around alongside Hernandez and Kocain, tweeted succeeding the medal ceremony, “Congratulations to my girls @Simone_Biles [and] @Aly_Raisman for winning GOLD and SILVER in the ALL-AROUND! I love you [guys!] #TeamUSA”

Since the aforementioned gymnastics finals, the Final Five have accompanied one another to myriad interviews for programs inclusive of The Today Show, ABC News, et cetera, where they have lightheartedly bantered and chuckled along to questions encompassing celebrity crushes, preferred musical artists; “ordinary” adolescent intrigues in spite of their extraordinary entitlements.

Recently, Biles uploaded snapshots of a trio of herself, Raisman, and Kocain simmering down on a felicitous and well-deserved jaunt to Rio de Janerio’s picturesque seashores and hotel swimming pools to Instagram and Snapchat.

Furthermore, the lot is scheduled for a transcontinental Unites States Kellogg’s Tour of Gymnastics Champions, which they collectively expressed on The Today Show their arrant enthusiasm and sprightliness for unceasingly exhibiting their deftness and friendship.

 

In summary: as a result of internalized misogyny, we, as those who identify on the gender spectrum as female personages, habitually contrive needless antagonism, rancor, and argumentativeness within one another. However, to actualize our feminist progressions, it is imperative that girls support girls.

Do not deforest her blossoming woodland with contempt to her acne, her wardrobe, her significant others, her extracurricular activities—her being.

The Final Five, although under arduous circumstances, emulate this societal aspiration consummately. They have risen and they have fallen, and perhaps of the lion’s share of paramouncy, they have fulfilled this together.  Distinguish their positive behaviors, and applicate that to your interpersonal female-led relationships.

We can steer the vehicle if and only when we have conditioned ourselves to accelerate the gas pedal.

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