Simone Biles has always made it look so easy.
She burst onto the senior international stage as a 16-year-old gymnastics phenom who went from rising U.S. junior star to best in the world in the blink of an eye.
“At that point, I was just trying to go out there and make a name for myself,” Biles said of her breakout 2013 World Championships performance in the Netflix series Simone Biles Rising produced in collaboration with the International Olympic Committee. “That was the first and only Worlds that I was an underdog in.
“Once you win it, it changes all expectations for the rest of your career. It’s easy being the underdog,” continued Biles. “Now, every time I show up, I’m expected to win.”
That’s what Biles did.
A second world title in 2014, a third in 2015. Her run through the Rio 2016 Olympic Games ended with her on the top step of the podium four times, as she claimed team, all-around, vault and floor exercise gold medals.
Even her return to the sport after a year of not training seemed effortless. When she came back to the global stage in 2018 after sitting out the year before, Biles had her most successful worlds ever: winning a medal in every final.
In 2019, she soared to five gold medals at the World Championships, tying a 61-year-old record.
“I actually think there was something good about going into 2016 blindly because I didn’t know anything and the expectations weren’t as big as they are now,” said Biles following her ninth U.S. title win earlier this year. “Now, having gone to two Olympics, every one I feel like gets a little more stressful because I know exactly what to expect.”
That stress caught up to Biles at Tokyo 2020 where she had to withdraw from the women’s team final and four subsequent individual finals to prioritse her mental health as she dealt with what gymnasts call the twisties, a condition where the body and mind fall out of sync.
The performances that had come so easy for her time and again weren’t possible.
In the years since, Biles has said it was a combination of trauma stemming from her abuse at the hands of the former U.S. team doctor, the isolation of the COVID impacted Games and feeling like she had “the weight of the world” on her shoulders.
A COMEBACK IN THE OFFING
Tokyo took its toll on Biles.
“Working five years for a dream and just having to give it up, it was not easy at all,” she told NBC’s Hoda Kotb while in Japan.
A comeback to the sport swirled in her mind, but so did doubts. Would that trademark ease return? Could she twist again comfortably? Biles wasn’t sure.
“I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to compete again because there were multiple times this year where I was in the gym and I was like, ‘I’m actually terrified of this full-in, like I’m not doing it again, never going to do it,'” Biles told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview prior to the 2023 World Championships.
She persevered, thanks in large part to her training partners at World Champions Centre, the gym owned by her parents Ron and Nellie Biles.
“I was like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to come back another day, another day,’” said Biles. “The girls on the team really helped me with that because they were like, ‘No, Simone, just come in. Come on.’ And I’m like, ‘Okay, you’re right. I can’t give up now because then I’ll forever be afraid of it.’”
Eventually, she overcame her fear and found a sense of comfort in doing so.
“I, at least, knew that if I were to walk away from the sport, I could come in the gym and at least do a full-in, a double-double, or triple-double and I’d be good,” explained Biles. “I feel like right now, if I walk away, I know that I can do that, so that helps me.”
CHANGES OUT OF THE GYM
Therapy has also helped.
In the three years since Tokyo, Biles has done more than just spark the global conversation about mental health in sports, she’s put it into practice.
“I’m making a bigger effort into taking care of my mind and my body, which includes going to therapy once every week, usually Thursday is kind of my therapeutic day and I try to take a day for myself,” Biles told Olympics.com last September. “It’s really important that I’m taking care of my mind as much as I do my body, especially in this sport and outside of the sport.”
Her life outside the sport has flourished, too.
She wed NFL safety Jonathan Owens, who plays for the Chicago Bears, last May in a ceremony in Cabo.
The two have supported each other in their athletic careers with Biles trekking back and forth from her training base in Houston to many of his games last fall. Owens, for his part, could be seen diligently keeping score in the stands as Biles won the U.S. Classic, U.S. Championships and U.S. trials in May and June.
“People think if you’re a wife, you can’t be a professional athlete, you can’t be a gymnast, you can’t do whatever, and I came to the realization, like, yeah, I can still be a wife and be out there,” Biles told us. “I was, like, married to gymnastics, and now, I feel like I’m attached to so many other things and gymnastics is just a part of my day because at the end of my practice, I’m like, ‘Well, I get to go home to a house, to my husband, to my dogs, to all this stuff,’ where before it was like, man, gym, gym, gym, gym.”
PARIS, HER WAY
Even as Biles tries to make sure her sport isn’t her sole focus, she knows her performance in Paris will bring a bright spotlight.
She knows that no matter what the City of Light holds, it won’t be enough for some.
“It doesn’t matter if do it, they’ll still say like, ‘Oh my gosh, are you going to quite again?’ And, like, if I did, what are you going to do about it? Tweet me some more? I’ve already dealt with that for three years,” Biles said.
That is, perhaps, why in the years since Tokyo, Biles has shied away from publicly stating her goals, even often couching her Paris dreams by saying “if” she were to make the U.S. squad.
But after being named to Team USA at last month’s U.S. Olympic trials, Biles was clear on the mission.
“This is definitely our redemption tour. I feel like we all have more to give. Our Tokyo performances weren’t the best, we weren’t under the best circumstances either,” she said. “But I feel like we have a lot of weight on our shoulders to go out there and prove we’re better athletes, we’re more mature, we’re smarter, we’re more consistent.”
With her third Games set to open in seven short days, Biles takes on her biggest, most difficult feat: erasing the memory of Tokyo.
It’s a deeply personal task, she says.
“I think it has to be for us because it can’t be for anybody else because that’s not why we do it,” said Biles. “We do it for ourselves, the love of the sport, the love of representing the U.S.”
And so, the last two years with its building back from the most basic of elements to Biles confidently executing her triple-twisting, double back flip, whatever they culminate in in Paris is for her alone.
The future Simone Biles, too.
“I think mostly it was [thinking about] in 10 years, whenever I look back, do I want to have any regrets? Do I want to be watching… Paris on the TV and be like, ‘Wow, if I would have just gone into the gym and just put a little effort in…’ Because I will always get to do whatever I want to do after my career is over,” said a reflective Biles. “But I won’t be able to do my career forever.”
