Paris (AFP) – Simone Biles, with two Paris Olympics gold medals and counting, has cemented her legacy as the greatest gymnast of all time — an athlete who transcends her sport in both triumph and defeat. The diminutive dynamo dazzled at the 2016 Rio Games, winning gold in all-around, vault, floor exercise, and team events.
She arrived at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics with superstar billing and history in her sights, but withdrew from most of the events as she struggled with the disorienting and “petrifying” mental block that gymnasts call the “twisties”. Hailed by many as a mental health trailblazer but criticized by a few as a quitter, Biles has returned from a two-year hiatus, at the age of 27, as good as or even better than ever.
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She has laid the ghosts of Tokyo to rest, leading the United States to a resounding team gold in Paris and following up by becoming, at 27, the oldest woman in 72 years to win Olympic all-around gold. Biles shook off a disastrous uneven bars routine that had her trailing at the halfway point to edge Brazilian Rebeca Andrade for all-around gold on Thursday. She is the third woman to capture more than one Olympic all-around title and the first to do so in non-consecutive Olympics.
Biles now has six Olympic gold medals and nine medals total. Her tally of world and Olympic medals is a jaw-dropping 39 — 29 of them gold. The American, who started that cache with her first all-around world title in 2013, when she was just 16, remains a must-see sensation. Her competitions at Bercy Arena have drawn stars from Hollywood and the world of sport, as well as billionaire entrepreneurs and legions of young girls thrilled to see their idol.
On Thursday, Biles suggested the glamorous turnout was a celebration of an Olympics freed of the Covid restrictions that made Tokyo a sterile affair. Teammate Suni Lee, who took all-around bronze, knew better. “I would’ve to say honestly, Simone, I feel like a lot of it has to do with you.” More than seven million Instagram followers basked in the fairytale photos of Biles’s wedding to NFL player Jonathan Owens, who received special dispensation from the Chicago Bears to miss a few days of training camp to watch her in Paris.
Pop icon Taylor Swift took a moment during her Eras tour in Europe to tweet her approval when Biles chose a phrase from Swift’s “…Ready For It?” to kick off her floor routine at the US Olympic trials. But Biles’s ascent has featured as many twists as one of her signature tumbling moves. Tokyo capped a tumultuous period that included Biles’s revelation, in 2018, that she was among the hundreds of gymnasts who were sexually abused by former Olympic team doctor Larry Nassar.
She was a vocal critic of USA Gymnastics and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee over their handling of the scandal and a leading voice calling for their accountability after Nassar was convicted and imprisoned. Biles had to laugh when she was reminded that she poked fun at a 22-year-old Aly Raisman as the “grandma” of the 2016 US team, saying she owed Raisman an apology. Now she’s an elder stateswoman, and her more than 10 years of dominance have redefined a sport that now features five signature skills named for her.
In Paris, 20-year-old Panamanian Hillary Heron became the first woman other than Biles herself to complete a Biles move at the Olympics, nailing a Biles I floor exercise double layout. Biles has made the Yurchenko double pike vault — a vault so difficult no other woman has attempted it in competition — a staple. “She’s the most talented athlete I’ve ever worked with and so we just knew if she could get her mental game as well as her physical game, then she would be close to unstoppable,” said Cecile Landi, who coaches Biles with husband Laurent Landi.
Biles pays meticulous attention to her mental health, even meeting long-distance with her therapist during the Games. Her path has also been made easier by the supportive environment at World Champions Centre, the Texas gym owned and operated by Biles’s parents, Nellie and Ron. The couple, in actuality Biles’s grandparents, adopted Biles and her sister Adria after they ended up in foster care, their biological mother unable to care for them because of substance abuse struggles.
Biles, who was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2022, said she is as proud of her journey as she is of her athletic feats. “Just to see where I’ve grown even from Tokyo and even from the 19-year-old from Rio is amazing,” Biles said after nabbing all-around gold. “Because I never thought I’d be on a world stage again competing. So just proud of Simone for putting in the work and never giving up.”
© 2024 AFP
