What Simone Biles accomplishes in this latest comeback depends as much on her mind as it does her body.
After she’d wrapped up her record eighth U.S. title with dazzlingly difficult routines on both balance beam and floor exercise, co-coach Laurent Landi said what was already obvious. What’s always been obvious.
“If she does this at worlds or the Olympic Games,” he said, “she wins.”
But there’s a recognition from Biles and her team that her considerable skills aren’t enough. She has to do this her way, in a manner that preserves both her physical and mental health. That covers everything from no longer putting off repetitions on those dreaded uneven bars during training to not doing a jaw-dropping vault “just for show.”
It also means limiting how much of herself she shares. And when.
When Biles announced in June she was coming back, everyone’s thoughts immediately went to the Paris Olympics. They were just a year away, and the idea she’d make a return without Paris as the ultimate goal was unimaginable. Especially given her unsatisfying experience at the Tokyo Games.
But Biles has been steadfast so far in her refusal to commit. Of course, she and her coaches are thinking in the long term. Publicly, however, her plans go only so far as the next meet.
She didn’t want to talk about the national championships until she got through the U.S. Classic earlier this month. Now that nationals are over, it’s the world team selection camp Sept. 19-20. Only then will the world championships, Sept. 30 to Oct. 8 in Antwerp, Belgium, be up for discussion.
“First of all, y’all are kind of nosy sometimes,” Biles said Sunday night. “I think sometimes it’s OK to keep it to ourselves just so that nobody can throw it in your face like, `Oh, this was your goal and you didn’t hit it.’
“And I’m kind of age where it’s like, yeah, just let me be in peace,” she added. “One thing at a time.”
This perspective is hard-earned.
The pressure on Biles going into the Tokyo Olympics was immense. She was expected to match, and maybe exceed, the four gold medals she’d won at the Rio Games in 2016. And with Michael Phelps retired, she was the poster girl for these Olympics, her name and face everywhere you looked in the leadup.
But those expectations, coupled with the isolation caused by COVID, led to so much anxiety she got a case of “the twisties.” No longer certain of where she was in the air and unwilling to put her health and safety at risk, Biles withdrew from all but one event final.
Some of the reaction was – and still is – brutally vicious. It shook her confidence and made Biles think long and hard about whether she wanted to come back and, if she did, how she could protect herself.
Therapy has helped. But so, too, has sticking to her own pace.
She was in the gym for months without the public knowing. At both the Classic and U.S. championships, she did not talk with media before the event began. She did a short interview with NBC after the first night of competition at nationals, but did not talk to the rest of the media until after the meet was over.
She has not committed to Paris yet, and if Landi mentions worlds or the Olympics, it’s always with an “if.”
“We just have to try and keep her as healthy as possible, and still willing to do the sport,” he said. “… The body listens to the mind.”
Asked how someone as accomplished as Biles can doubt herself, Landi said she’s human. It’s hard to drown out the negativity, he said, regardless of who you are. Gold medals don’t provide some magical force field from those rooting against you.
“This is where you need to try to put blinds on and just listen to the people that are around you that want you to do good and not to listen to everything else. Everything else is garbage. It doesn’t matter,” Landi said. “So the family is more important and the people around her that wants her to be good. To be healthy.”
Biles doesn’t need to do gymnastics. Her reputation in the sport was secured long ago, and another gold medal or world title won’t change it. She is 26 and newly married, with a husband who is working a three-hour flight away. And she jokes there are days in the gym when she feels as if “this age is kicking my (butt).”
But she still wants to do gymnastics.
“I still feel like I have some personal goals. I still feel like I’m capable of doing it and I kind of proved to myself that I can still go out there and compete to the same level as before,” Biles said. “So as long as − I wouldn’t say as long as I keep doing that, I’ll be out here because I absolutely will not. But I’m gonna give it one more go, and then we’ll see.”
It was clear from her dominating performance at the U.S. championships that Biles is in good shape physically. That she appears to be in good shape mentally is even better.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
