Aug 3, 2024; Paris, France; Simone Biles of the United States celebrates her gold medal during the medal ceremony for the vault on the first day of gymnastics event finals during the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Bercy Arena. Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
To say a lot of people watched the Olympics this year would be an incredible understatement. To say that people were interested in gymnastics? Locked in doesn’t even begin to cover it. After her historic exit from the Tokyo 2020 Games, a record 34.7 million people tuned in to watch Simone and Team USA Gymnastics in Paris this summer.
There was one woman in southern Florida glued to the screen who felt every flip in her stomach, and every vault in her chest. Every breath, every pass, every jump: Elizabeth felt it all.
To Elizabeth, watching Olympic gymnastics felt like a test: Would USA Gymnastics prove that prioritizing mental health and time away from the sport could lead to excellence? Or would the countless haters who had called Simone “weak” rule the day as the team failed to measure up?
Elizabeth Montavon, as close to waterskiing royalty as it gets, knows a thing or two about pressure. A third generation skier, Elizabeth is a 9x national champion, 3x all American, Pan American champion and a fearless competitor on the Waterski Pro Tour. Under the watchful eye of her grandfather and parents, Elizabeth has grown from excitable to disciplined, from anxious to prepared. A consistent confidence has become her calling card, and Elizabeth has become one of waterskiing’s leaders, both on and off the water. She runs a successful waterski lifestyle company with her husband, and advocates for gender and financial equity in sports in her role as Director of Athlete Marketing & Social Media at Parity. When Elizabeth isn’t behind a boat going 60+ mph, she’s pushing for changes in waterskiing culture, and demanding new standards for the way female athletes are treated in every sport, at every level.
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March 11, 2024; Melbourne, Australia: Elizabeth Montavon celebrates her 3rd place finish in the Women's Slalom Finals at the prestigious Moomba Masters. A strong performance on the Yarra River highlights her continued dominance in the sport. Credit: Vincent Stadlbaur.
Perhaps that’s why MyKayla Skinner’s video hit her like it did.
In a since-deleted YouTube video, MyKayla Skinner, a 2020 Olympian, when referring to USA Gymnastics’ talent pool at the Olympic Trials, said, "The girls just don't have the work ethic. And it's hard too because of SafeSport. Like, coaches can't get on athletes and they have to be really careful what they say. Which, in some ways is really good, but at the same time, to get to where you need to be in gymnastics you do have to be, I feel like, a little aggressive and a little intense."
Waterskiing is not an Olympic sport, but it recently was brought under the USOPC umbrella. While inclusion in the USOPC means more funding and visibility, it also means new rules to adhere to: in 2022, USA Water Ski and Wake Sports (USAWS) had its first introduction to SafeSport. The US Center for SafeSport, more commonly known just as SafeSport, is a nonprofit that was founded in 2017 to promote athlete safety in Olympic and Paralympic sports programs in the United States. The organization was created in the wake of the rampant abuse uncovered in the USA gymnastics system, and works to protect athletes from bullying, hazing, and both mental and physical abuse.
While some immediately recognized the benefits of these safety measures, to many, the extra training was nothing more than bothersome red tape. Many USA Water Ski and Wake Sports members threatened to boycott events and cancel memberships unless SafeSport requirements were foregone. For such a small sport, the loss of support would have been devastating. The threats got lost in the wake of the Covid pandemic, which swallowed sports whole and spit them back out, struggling for resources and participation across the board.
Total rounds skied by class 2019-2022 (Source: USA Waterski)
But while the arguments might have died down, Elizabeth, along with many other skiers, heard the message loud and clear: your mental or physical well being is not a priority, it’s a distraction.
While Elizabeth now feels lucky to be in a coach-athlete relationship built on trust, it hasn’t always been that way. She also knows many other young skiers who have been victims of abuse, and many more who have felt the “fit in or get out” pressure that comes a high intensity sport like skiing. Elizabeth says that the “approved way to improve” is to ski more, push harder: there has never really been a discourse on working smarter, and it certainly hasn’t included mental health, or sports psychology.
With such a small number of competitions and athletes, Elizabeth says that the sport defaults to a scarcity mentality: there’s not much here, so everyone fights to secure their portion. Athletes (and their parents and coaches) are taught to do everything and anything to get their slice of the pie. With more limited opportunities the pressure mounts, often leaving athletes to believe that there isn’t space in their lives for anything else. Elizabeth has striven to be a leader in the waterski community, advocating for mental health awareness, and giving the junior skiers she works with the permission to live full and happy lives.
She believes that by making the waterski community fun and inviting, the sport will grow. Eventually, the scarcity mentality will be replaced with a healthy, vibrant sport that encourages competition and hard work, but also leaves space for kids to be kids, and adults to balance competition with their other passions. Elizabeth doesn’t just want this because she thinks it’s the right path, she believes in it because she knows it will produce better skiers.
So when MyKayla Skinner doubted the work ethic of the team heading to the Games, Elizabeth felt personally attacked. Could Skinner be right? Was taking time to focus on mental health synonymous with a lack of work ethic?
But she knew better, and she got her validation before any of the medals were awarded. Elizabeth saw the faces of Simone, Jade, Suni, Jordan, Hezly, Joscelyn and Leanne and knew: they were happy.
Jul 30, 2024; Paris, France; Team United States celebrates winning gold in the women’s team final at the Paris 2024 Olympic Summer Games at Bercy Arena. Credit: James Lang-Imagn Images
They were competing by choice, and with joy. They were out there for themselves, for one another, and they were happy. After having been through so much, no one would take their sport away from them, just like Elizabeth has refused to let anyone take skiing from her. All the medals that followed only served to reinforce what Elizabeth, and the rest of us, already knew: it had worked. Prioritizing athlete safety works, prioritizing athlete mental health works, taking time off works, and giving athletes access to sports psychology wins gold medals.
As Elizabeth does the unsexy and long term work of changing the culture of USA Water Ski, wins like Simone’s help. Simone Biles’ journey is proof that sports culture is changing, and with it, how we define hard work and commitment.
Commitment no longer means staying silent in a system designed to hurt athletes. Hard work no longer means ignoring mental and physical health in pursuit of faster or stronger. Simone has shown us that health comes first, not last, and excellence will follow.
About Parity
Minority-founded in 2020, Parity's mission is to close the gender income and opportunity gap in professional sports. By developing high-impact collaborations between brands, professional women athletes and their fans, Parity has proudly put more than $3.5 million in the pockets of women athletes, attracting dozens of brands to the movement in the process. The platform offers connections to more than 1000 women athletes from 80+ sports, including well over 200 Olympians and Paralympians. For more information on how to tap into the rapidly rising influence and popularity of women athletes, visit https://paritynow.co or follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter) and Threads.
