The American gymnastics superstar said if she learned anything from the strange, uncertain days in Tokyo, it’s that the battle to protect yourself is never really over
Simone Biles works on her routine on the balance beam during training at the Stars Gymnastics Sports Center, in Katy, Tex., on Feb. 5.If the gymnastics superstar has learned anything in the three years since those strange, uncertain days in Tokyo when she put her mental health and personal safety ahead of her pursuit of more Olympic glory, it is that the battle to protect yourself is never really over. Never fully won.
She can now, though the road to this moment – Biles will compete for the first time in 2024 at this weekend’s U.S. Classic – has been difficult. It has required a new mindset, at times a literal mother’s touch and constant vigilance to work on herself, work she now understands has no expiration date.
And so she didn’t. Biles pulled out of a handful of finals before returning to earn a bronze on the balance beam, a medal the most decorated gymnast in the history of the sport has called one of the most important of her career. As painful and frightening as the experience was, it needed to happen because it made Biles realize mental health isn’t something she could ignore.
Last fall in Antwerp, Belgium, Biles walked into a nearly empty arena during podium training before the world championships, her first team competition since Tokyo. Something about the scene evoked, as Nellie Biles puts it, “a PTSD moment.” Biles ran off the floor to gather herself following a trigger she never saw coming.“She almost didn’t go back out there,” Nellie Biles said.
“My daughter is and I know can braid her own hair,” Nellie Biles said. “But it’s just that touch, that togetherness. It’s that bonding. It’s what she needed and it worked.” Instead, she’s “still flipping out here,” still finding her way to World Champions Centre – the spaceship of a gym the Biles family runs – and training alongside other Olympic hopefuls, many of whom are nearly a decade younger and grew up idolizing her.“I think everything I’ve been through, I want to push the limits,” she said. “I want to see how far I can go.
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