Champion gymnast Simone Biles turned in a powerhouse performance at the Olympic trials this week, securing her top score and a key spot on the U.S. team for the 2024 Games in Paris this year.
Her floor routine and vault, in particular, drew top marks and standing ovations from the audience.
It’s a remarkable victory that follows a walk away from the sport for Biles two years After an early exit from the team competition in Tokyo, When he mentioned the need to “focus on his mental health”. It’s also a testament to the work he’s done since that competition to strengthen his mental well-being and resume a rigorous physical training regimen. At the trials, Biles used her win to highlight the intense pressure elite athletes are under and the importance of being open about these challenges.
“We were all pretty open and honest [about] That’s what we’re going through,” Biles, 27, said at a news conference after the meeting. “But we’re always going to prioritize mental health and it’s really nice that Tokyo has given us the opportunity to open that stage for that discussion.”
Biles’ recent victory will mark her third trip to the Olympics and the oldest US female gymnast to qualify for the Games since the 1950s. The fact that Biles is starting to compete again is a feat in itself. She will be one of a small group of gymnasts who have competed in three consecutive Olympic Games. Her willingness to confront her mental health struggles sends a compelling message, normalizing the decision to speak up and showing how athletes can be empowered to do so.
Biles’ dominant performance at the Olympic Trials, briefly explained
Biles made her Olympic debut in Rio in 2016, where she won three individual golds and a team gold. Since then, he has won countless other competitions, including the US National Championship nine times. Biles is regarded as the greatest gymnast of all time because of the high difficulty of the skills she performs and her ability to perform them. His victories in the Olympics and numerous world championships Also making her the most decorated gymnast ever
In Tokyo in 2021, Biles returned to the Olympics as a member of the US team. While there, he experienced what is colloquially known as a “twisty,” a dangerous condition when gymnasts lose track of where they are in the air. Due to the complexity and difficulty of gymnastic routines, twisties are extremely dangerous and can result in serious injuries.
After getting “twisty” on a vault, Biles decided to withdraw from several Olympic events, including the team competition. Before that decision, she wrote in an Instagram post That she felt she had “the weight of the world on my shoulders at times”, later described the challenges as a build-up of chronic traumas that all came to a head.
“It’s like compressing all this shit over the years. It just unfolded. You can’t compress trauma for that long,” Biles said this year podcast Call her father.
In the years since Tokyo, Biles says she’s been “terrified” to get back into the gym and revisit some of the skills she used to do. She cites engaging in therapy as a major factor in helping her process and recovery from the 2020 Olympics, and she also Talks about taking medication to deal with anxiety.
“[I’m] Continued to work on my body and my mind, just like I’ve done for the last year and a half, and it worked,” Biles said. Call her father. “I didn’t think therapy was going to work, and it did.” According to her trainer Cicely Landy, Biles now has a toolkit of strategies she’s developed to combat stress during competition.
Biles made an impressive comeback at this year’s Olympic Trials, which consist of two days of competition, with each athlete performing all four gymnastic apparatus – bars, beam, floor and vault – on both days. The Olympic Selection Committee then considers scores received by the athletes and other factors to determine who should make the team.
This year, the decision was relatively simple: The committee went with the top-scoring athletes across the board, something they don’t always do because they also take into account individual strengths in different apparatuses.
In the end, Biles took the lead with 117.225 points — five points ahead of the next competitor. He was followed by Olympic vets Suni Lee at 111.675, Jordan Chiles at 111.425, Jade Carey at 111.350 and newcomer Hazley Rivera at 111.150. Five of those teams are going to Paris, while Jocelyn Roberson and Lian Wang will act as travel substitutes.
Biles secured her spot on the Olympic team with two days of stellar routines, particularly on floor and vault. On those two apparatuses, she has long been known to score some of the highest difficulty scores of any gymnast competing, something that hasn’t changed in her comeback.
Her floor exercises, for example, include a jaw-dropping move Dubbed Biles II, which involves three twists and two flips. And his arch, widely seen As the toughest in women’s gymnastics — Yurchenko features what is known as the double pike, which no other female gymnast has been able to do.
Biles’ focus on mental health sends an important message
Since her experience in Tokyo, Biles has been vocal about the need to take care of her mental health and the need for professional athletes to have an outlet to discuss their long periods of intense scrutiny and stress.
“I think athletes are a little more in tune now and we trust what our gut is telling us, and take mental health a little more seriously,” Biles said at this week’s press briefing.
Elite athletes are under incredible pressure to perform, Makes them prone to anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions. In the past, discussing mental health has also been stigmatized and seen by some as a sign of weakness. Biles’ decision to speak out helps remove some of that stigma and allows more people, including her teammates, to share their own concerns.
“Dog [Lee] Before, she came to me and she was like ‘I’m not okay’ and so we went through it. We tell him, why, why is he doing it, and we just give him the reminder that he can do it, he’s done it before, so let’s go out there and get it,” Biles said at the press briefing.
Leo stressed how important it is to his mental health and staying positive as he navigates his recovery from kidney disease to compete again this year.
Biles also says she’s less focused on external judgment. In Tokyo, some spectators reacted negatively to Biles’ decision to withdraw from competition, and if athletes — including her — make a similar decision in Paris, it could generate similar reactions from certain observers.
“I think it has to be for us, because it can’t be for anybody else because we don’t do it. We do it for ourselves, and the love of this game and the love of representing the U.S.,” Biles said at the press briefing.
