PARIS:Watching Simone Biles is exhilarating in addition to being gorgeous. She exudes an unfathomable force that surges through her. Because of her balance, composure, and drive, she can make a half-failed landing and still be competitive in an exclusive sports environment. Biles, who stands four feet eight inches tall, makes everyone else in the room appear smaller.
But in front of the entire world in Tokyo three years prior, she broke. Biles invented the twisties, a kind of gymnastics where you literally lose your position in space while twisting, flying, and spinning. She had a rough session on the beam and then had a panic attack. She pulled out of the team match. She believed that the world and America would both despise her. When she arrived at the athletes’ village, other athletes approached her and expressed their gratitude for her.
Biles recalled the incident, saying, “I was like crying in the Olympic store because I just wasn’t expecting that.”
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She believed that she would never again compete in the Olympics. Following a gruelling three-year personal reconstruction, she found herself in Paris at Bercy Arena, surrounded by a star-studded audience that included John Legend, Chrissy Teigen, Lady Gaga, Snoop Dogg, Anna Wintour, Jessica Chastain, Nick Jonas, Greta Gerwig, and many others. Biles had looked like herself in training; U.S. coach Cecile Landi said team leaders exhaled, even though Biles had won five medals and four golds at the world championships last year.
And Biles was fantastic, limp and all, on Sunday in Paris. She was once again unquestionable, brilliant, and in control on the Olympic stage for a day.
“Well, it was rather incredible. not flawless, so (she) can improve a bit,” Landi said, adding she had no concerns Biles could continue to fully compete in Paris.
Still, there will be scepticism until Biles competes again. The 27-year-old did a near-flawless bar performance — no wobbles, utter command — and then felt her calf twitch while warming up for her floor routine. It was the exact location she had agony two weeks earlier. Biles left the floor and returned with tape from mid-foot to mid-calf, and was definitely limping. On Peacock, NBC’s streaming service, she was heard to half-joke, “I’m going to need a wheelchair.”
She had difficulties landing during her floor exercise; she couldn’t land either of her two practice vaults, the eye-popping Yurchenko Double Pike, which has been dubbed the Biles II. (Biles already has another signature move named after her.) After one, Biles crawled halfway back after a practice vault, a half-smile on her face, before rising up and hopping on one foot.
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“It’s not proper to express out loud what I was thinking,” said Chellsie Memmel, Team USA’s technical lead.
And then Biles landed a Biles II, albeit with a big hop backward on landing, for a massive 15.800. She managed the bars without using the new technical element she intends to add later at these Games, and she delivered an easier second vault. The difference between 17th and second place by mid-afternoon Paris time was roughly the same as the difference between Biles and her teammate in second place, Suni Lee.
Between, Biles saw Snoop Dogg, dressed in an American jumpsuit, dancing in the fans. Biles and partner Jordan Chiles also did some dancing. Excited, Biles raced and waved to the fans after sticking the landing on the bars. Biles waved as she hobbled past the Team USA gymnasts, who are not allowed to speak to the media until after the all-around final. It looked like she was having fun out there.
What happens next? The rebuilding of Biles was sluggish. She stopped going to the gym for a spell and let the sport to slowly draw her back as she unpacked Tokyo. She gave gymnastics less thought. She didn’t give a damn about the outcome, about criticism, or about bearing the load. She has discussed how the trauma she had hidden for years—her own sexual abuse as part of the Larry Nassar scandal, the loss of her family during every major competition due to the COVID pandemic, the pressure of being an adopted child and succeeding in gymnastics in the United States—was what her therapist identified as the cause of her issues in Tokyo.
Over the previous three years, Biles overcame all of that, got married, and formed a fresh bond with the sport. Naturally, even though she is once again a goddess of gymnastics, this does not imply that she is healed. None of us are ever completely free from the trauma in our lives, so she hasn’t been miraculously purified of it.
However, she is here, larger than ever, healthier and hobbling but still trying her hardest, imperfect but lovely. In actuality, this rendition of Simone Biles is almost precisely as big as life.
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