The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
For Biles, peace comes with a price
TOKYO >> ver. “So, I knew for myself that I had to take a step back.”
Something that’s been increasingly difficult since her return to the sport in the fall of 2017.
She made a promise to herself when she came back that she would be doing it on her terms. Her way. She spent much of the run-up to Tokyo desperately trying to hold onto that vision. She won a world championship in 2018 despite battling a kidney stone that left her in agony and became the most decorated gymnast ever with a five-medal haul in Germany a year later.
Everything was primed for a golden goodbye in Japan last August. Then the coronavirus pandemic hit, pushing the Games back a full 12 months. And everything had to be recalibrated.
She fended off depression, steeling herself to go on. There was a brand to build. Sponsors to please. Fans to honor. Critics — both internal and external — to silence. Much like Olympic greats Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, the 24-year-old became a prisoner of her own excellence.
To be fair, in some ways she helped build the walls. She’s embraced — winkingly, most of the time — her status as the Greatest of All-Time.
It takes a special kind of swagger to compete in a leotard with a bejeweled goat you’ve nicknamed “Goldie.” A documentary series has spent the last two years chronicling her path. The acronym for the post-Olympic Gold Over America Tour she is headlining this fall is not a coincidence.
A room overlooking the massive gym her family runs in the northern Houston suburbs turned into a TV studio over the spring. Outlets asking for a piece of her time came and went, asking her the same questions over and over again. She accommodated as many as she could. It’s all part of the process.
Int er na lly, however, things were shifting. Her performances during the spring competition were ... OK, at least by her standards. Yes, she drilled her Yurchenko double pike vault when she unveiled it in May. She also fell off uneven bars the same night. During the U.S. Olympic Trials in June, she actually finished behind Olympic teammate Sunisa Lee on the final day of the competition, the first time that’s happened in eight years.
Things didn’t get any better in Tokyo. Biles topped qualifying as usual but an uncharacteristically messy block on her Cheng vault sent her nearly sideways off the table. She bounded all the way off the competition mat following one tumbling pass on floor. She carried so much momentum on her beam dismount she took three huge steps backward.
Something wasn’t right. The doubts that have cropped up at times during her career re-emerged. And rather than brush them back, she accepted their presence. They lingered when she walked onto the floor July 27 for the team final. Her warm-up wasn’t great. Her vault was even worse, as the planned 2 ½ twists of her Amanar became 1 ½ instead.
This wasn’t the first time she felt like this. She was a newly minted senior elite at the U.S. Classic in 2013. Things went badly. She fell on each of the first three events. Then coach Aimee Boorman withdrew the 16-year-old from the competition in an effort to protect her from herself.
Asked if there were any similarities between what happened July 27 and that forgettable day in Chicago, Biles laughed.
“I was dumb and stupid (back then),” she said. “I was pulled out. I wanted to go out there and compete.”