SIMONE’S REGRET

‘I should’ve quit way before Tokyo,’ she says

Simone Biles now admits she should have quit gymnastics long before the Tokyo Olympics.

The 24-year-old seven-time Olympic medalist said she buckled under a range of stresses at the July Games, including the trauma of having been sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar.

“I should have quit way before Tokyo, when Larry Nassar was in the media for two years,” she told New York magazine (inset). “It was too much. But I was not going to let him take something I’ve worked for since I was 6 years old. I wasn’t going to let him take that joy away from me. So I pushed past that as long as my mind and my body would let me.”

The diminutive Texan also opened up about her bout with the “twisties,” which led her to pull out of the team finals and allround contest in Tokyo before returning to win bronze in the individual beam competition.

The condition, a severance of communication between mind and body, can have dire consequences for a gymnast, she told the magazine.

“Say up until you are 30 years old you have your complete eyesight,” she said. “One morning, you wake up, you can’t see s- -t. But people tell you to go on and do your daily job as if you still have your eyesight. You’d be lost, wouldn’t you?”

Biles delivered tearful testimony against Nassar in front of the US Senate this month — and blamed USA Gymnastics for failing to halt his years of abuse of countless young gymnasts. While Nassar’s crimes came to light in 2016, Biles had been silent about her involvement in the case until 2018. Biles, the world’s most decorated gymnast, with 32 Olympic and World Championship medals, said she has forged a fragile peace with her partial withdrawal from the Tokyo Games. “Sometimes, it’s like, yeah, I’m perfectly OK with it,” she said. “Like, that’s how it works. That’s how it panned out. And then other times, I’ll just start bawling at the house.” Still, she said, detaching from competitive athletics has let her to travel and reorient toward her boyfriend and family.

She credited Mark Manson’s bestseller, “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F--k,” for helping her prioritize her needs over the expectations of others.

Biles said race also ratcheted up her internal pressures.

“As a black woman, we just have to be greater,” she told New York. “Because even when we break records and stuff, they almost just dim it down, as if it’s just normal.”

Despite the tumult of the last few months, Biles said, “I wouldn’t change anything, because everything happens for a reason. And I learned a lot about myself — courage, resilience, how to say no and speak up for yourself.”

She seems comfortably cognizant of her place in sports history.

“It will be a long time for someone to accomplish what I’ve accomplished,” she said.