MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — They all had their reasons to come back. Every single one of them.
Gymnastics superstar Simone Biles is trying to move past a trying two weeks in Japan three years ago when the athlete prioritized her mental health and safety over glory in a decision that inspired some and infuriated others.
With Biles watching from the stands, Lee was trying to prove (perhaps to herself more than anything) that her all-around gold medal win was no fluke.
Jordan Chiles is looking to turn the silver medal he helped the team win into gold at the 2020 Olympics.
Jade Carey earned her way to Tokyo as an individual qualifier and a full member of the five-man Olympic team, but that wasn’t an open path for the U.S. this time around, and frankly, Carey herself wasn’t interested in trying again anyway.
They’re all back in the special spotlight that only the biggest stage in sports can provide. Oh, and that includes 16-year-old rookie Hesley Rivera.
Their reasons are deeply personal. But their motivations are not.
“This is definitely our revenge tour,” Biles said after winning the U.S. Trials on Sunday night to qualify for her third Olympic Games. “We all feel like we can give more.”
Perhaps no one knows that more than Biles, who, at 27, is the oldest American woman to be selected for an Olympic gymnastics team since the 1950s, and almost a decade after she became a crossover sensation at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, Biles never expected to still be doing it.
And here she is. Still working. Still pushing herself. Not to silence the critics who bombard her on social media with references fearful that she’ll “quit” again, but because she remains determined to get all she can out of her incredible talent.
“Nobody is forcing me to do it,” said Biles, who won the all-around with a two-day total of 117.225 points, nearly six points ahead of Li. “I choose to get up every day, work in the gym, come out here and perform for myself, to tell myself I can still do it.”
And when she’s at her best, she does it at a level that no one can match in her sport, and perhaps in sports in general.
Biles’ trip to France has been a sure thing since she returned from a two-year hiatus last summer, and what she’s achieved in the past 12 months is win her sixth world all-around title and her eighth and ninth national titles (all new records) while competing in the most demanding gymnastics competitions of her life.
Although she has a lot to work on before the women’s qualifying round on July 28, she will be the overwhelming favourite when she steps onto the court at the Bercy Arena, but there are several areas she needs to improve on over the next four weeks.
Biles took a step back after landing the Yurchenko double pike vault, a testament both to the difficulty of the vault and the immense power she generates while performing the move, which so few men attempt and even fewer can land cleanly.
She jumped off the balance beam after mis-landing a side aerial, but wasn’t nearly as frustrated as she was after a sloppy performance on Friday that left her spitting expletives in front of the world.
Biles delivered a splendid performance on floor exercise, her specialty, and although she was slightly off-balance, she also displayed the unparalleled world-class tumbling that has garnered attention in recent times. From pop star Taylor SwiftBiles’ routine begins with the song “Ready For It.”
She stepped down from the podium to a standing ovation, sat on the steps and savored what may have been her final competitive round on American soil for a while, perhaps ever.
Biles dodged questions about what the future holds. That can wait. It’s been a long and winding road to get back to this moment, and she’s eager to enjoy it, even if it means “carrying a big weight” as part of a team.
She believes she and her teammates are in a better position to deal with it.
“It’s really great that Tokyo has given us that platform to have that discussion,” Biles said, “and now I think the athletes are a little more in sync and we can trust our instincts.”
And Biles’ instincts told her that if she wanted to come back, she had to do it on her own terms, and that meant taking intentional steps to ensure that her life was no longer defined by gymnastics.
She is set to marry Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens in the spring of 2023, and the couple are building a home in the northern suburbs of Houston, where they hope to move shortly after Biles returns from Paris.
Biles heads to France presumably as the face of the U.S. Olympic movement, but she is well aware that among the millions watching on television next month, some will be tuning in to see whether the demons that frustrated her in Tokyo resurface.
Though she still has moments of anxiety, including at last year’s world championships, she takes safety measures to protect herself, meeting with a therapist every week during competitive season — something she didn’t do while preparing for the 2020 Olympics.
The U.S. will send its oldest women’s team ever to the tournament, thanks to Biles’ unmatched longevity (she hasn’t lost a tournament since 2013) and a relaxation of name, image and likeness rules at the NCAA level that allows Carey, 24, Chiles, 23 and Lee, 21, to continue competing while simultaneously enjoying newfound fame.
They have relied on that experience in a tournament that has been disastrous when it comes to competing against strong contenders. Series Jones, Skye Blakely and Kayla DiCello A foot injury sidelined him from the match just weeks before a lifelong dream was to come true.
Watching her closest friends leave the arena in tears was a reminder of just how thin the line between success and failure is. Biles has been on the right side of that line for longer than anyone expected. She’s going to try to enjoy all the pressure.
She may have gotten too ahead of herself in 2021. She’s determined to not let that happen this time.
“I believe success is something you create for yourself,” she said. “So far I feel like I’ve been successful by competing at the Olympic Trials and being selected for the Paris Olympic team, so we’ll see what happens from here.”
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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-Paris-Olympics
