“Why Simone Biles’ Journey to Paris 2024 Has Been Her Toughest Challenge Yet”

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.