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At the Paris Olympics, Simone Biles captured the one thing greater than gold — she seemingly reclaimed her joy.
Biles was already the greatest gymnast — male or female — in history, with seven Olympic medals (four gold) and 30 World Championship medals. But, at the Paris Olympics, she had another goal: to compete on her terms and enjoy every moment.
And enjoy it she did — when it was announced early Tuesday that women of Team USA gymnastics were golden again, Biles quite literally jumped for joy. Then, she streamed through the arena carrying a giant American flag so she and her teammates Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles, Suni Lee and Hezly Rivera could pose for photographers. (The team win pushed Biles past Shannon Miller to claim the crown as the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast of all time.)
“We’re super excited,” Biles told Olympics broadcasters, speaking on behalf of the team just after the medal ceremony. “We’re honored to represent the U.S. every time we get on a world’s stage, but accomplishing that gold and that goal was just an amazing feeling. And I think we all had something to prove from Tokyo and tonight we did just that.”
Biles has called these games the “Redemption Tour” because the four athletes who competed in the 2020 Tokyo games — Carey, Chiles, Lee and herself (16-year-old Rivera is the rookie Olympian) — had faced major challenges since, from injury and illness to struggles with skills and self-confidence. This team was not only on a quest to best that silver medal, but to make a statement about all they’d overcome.
Jordan Chiles, left, Hezly Rivera, Simone Biles, Jade Carey and Sunisa Lee celebrate winning the gold medal during the artistic gymnastics women’s team final at the Paris Olympic Games on July 30.
Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
Biles has been candid about her mental health journey since Tokyo, where she scratched from the team finals with a bout of the twisties (a dangerous phenomenon where a gymnast loses track of their body while in the air). The first two episodes of Netflix docuseries “Simone Biles Rising” captured the behind-the-scenes drama of that moment, how Biles dealt with the fallout and what it took for her to mount this incredible comeback. For the last five years, documentarian Katie Walsh filmed the Olympian off and on; Walsh and a crew were on the sidelines in Paris filming for part two, out this fall.
“’Simone Biles Rising’” plays like three years’ worth of Biles’ diary entries, as she expresses her truth and reclaims her voice,” Variety TV critic Aramide Tinubu wrote in her review.
With the docuseries, Tinubu adds, “Biles tasks herself and the audience to examine what can happen if sportsmen are allowed to put their mental health on equal footing with their physical well-being. The noise around you can only be silenced for so long, but when you take charge of the things you’ve been told to feel shame about and trust yourself to live life on your terms, that’s true freedom.”
There’s been an obvious shift in Biles’ demeanor between the Tokyo and Paris Olympics. You can see the difference on her social media, for example. After the qualifying round in 2021, she posted to Instagram with the caption: “Prelims [check] now to prepare for finals. It wasn’t an easy day or my best but I got through it. I truly do feel like I have the weight of the world on my shoulders. I know I brush it off and make it seem like pressure doesn’t affect me but damn sometimes it’s hard hahaha! The olympics is no joke!”
Conversely, after qualifying in Paris on Sunday, Biles wrote simply: “Grateful to be doing what I love.” Then, just before finals began, Biles posted a TikTok set to Megan Thee Stallion’s “Where Them Girls At,” showing off her competition hair, nails and bejeweled leotard evoking the American flag (and a throwback to the 1996 team’s outfits).
In the opening moments of Tuesday’s broadcast, Laurie Hernandez — Biles’ teammate at the 2016 Rio games — praised the gymnast for the strides she’s taken, including doing therapy once a week. (Biles had a session on Tuesday morning, she told reporters at the Bercy Arena after the meet. “I was feeling calm and ready,” she said.) At 27, Hernandez noted, Biles is one among a growing number of gymnasts competing well into their 20s.
“This is the oldest team that the United States has seen in quite some time,” Hernandez said. “I do believe it’s because of athletes like Simone talking about mental health and how paying attention to the mind and training smarter, not harder, is something that should be done more often.”
Cheering Biles on from the audience were her parents, Ronald and Nellie Biles, and her husband, NFL player Jonathan Owens (who negotiated time off from the Chicago Bears’ mandatory preseason practices to see Biles compete at the Olympics). The crowd was also full of celebrities like Michael Phelps and Serena Williams (the GOATs of swimming and tennis, respectively); Oscar winners Spike Lee, Nicole Kidman and Natalie Portman; Jason and Kylie Kelce; and “Today” anchors Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb.
Throughout Tuesday’s competition, Biles wasn’t perfect — wobbling on the balance beam and stepping out of bounds twice during her high-flying floor exercise routine — but she was totally unfazed, rolling her eyes at the latter mistake instead of beating herself up.
By the time the meet was over, it was evident that her comeback was complete and a new, more joyful era of Biles’ career had begun. Case in point: immediately after winning the U.S. gold, the NBC broadcast caught live audio of Biles and Lee discussing what TikTok they’d make to celebrate. See the finished product below:
The 2024 team becomes the fourth group of U.S. gymnasts to win the Olympic gold medal, following 1996’s “Magnificent Seven,” 2012’s “Fierce Five” and 2016’s “Final Five” (of which Biles was a part). At the press conference after the competition [via Yahoo Sports], Olympic champion Aly Raisman asked what their team nickname was. After some hesitation, Biles shared an abbreviated version of the NSFW answer: F.A.A.F.O. for “F— around and find out.” (She later clarified that the name was an inside joke, then posted on social media that the official name is the “Golden Girls” because they’re the oldest team to date.)
During the press conference [per Time], Biles reflected on her experience on the U.S. National Team, including her early years training at the Karolyi Ranch where “nobody really talked or laughed” during practice. The prevailing belief was that having fun didn’t lead to success.
“I was like, that’s not how I do gymnastics,” Biles recalled. Thankfully, that culture is changing. “We show off our personalities and really have fun, but know that once we get on the floor, we’ve put in the work and it shows in the results. And we don’t have to be put in a box any more.”
Biles’s Olympic Games are far from over. She’ll next compete on Thursday in the all-around competition (a historic showdown between the last two champions, Lee and herself), as well as event finals for vault, balance beam and floor exercise. That final routine begins with the opening chords of Taylor Swift’s anthem “…Ready for It?” and it’s safe to say Biles’ reputation as the GOAT has been fully restored.
Team USA – Jordan Chiles, left, Sunisa Lee, Simone Biles, Hezly Rivera and Jade Carey — pose with their gold medals.
Naomi Baker/Getty Images
