What still remains is the same two-word problem—mental health—cited at the French Open for unable-to-cope tennis star Naomi Osaka (“it’s O.K. to not be O.K.”) or countless anonymous American kids. The coronavirus pandemic will recede eventually. The mental-health pandemic won’t.

The buildup to her Tokyo appearance gave the impression that Simone Biles’s Olympics career was on the cusp of a fairy-tale ending. So let’s enter the mess that became her Olympics through the door of a fairy tale.

Once upon a time, in a faraway land called Harvard University, a young man named Mark Zuckerberg came upon the idea of using the internet so students in college could connect easily and instantly with friends. It was a wonderful idea, a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow that let Mark live in a magical place called Silicon Valley.