SIMONE BILES HAS COME A LONG WAY TO STAY AT THE TOP.
Simone Biles arrives in Tokyo as she did in Rio de Janeiro in 2016, as one of the most engaging personalities in American sports and inarguably the best female gymnast to soar above God’s green earth.
But Biles, not to mention the planet, has changed considerably in the five-year interim between Olympic Games.
She learned that a doctor thought to be a benefactor instead was a predator and that administrators she trusted withheld the
An animated breakdown of the physics of Simone Biles’ most difficult routine. houstonchronicle.com/thebiles
truth from her. At times, she has been at odds with the burdens of her own greatness; a Facebook Watch video biography is titled “Simone Vs. Herself.”
Neither has Biles been immune from the dystopian nature of the pandemic year with its uncertainties and fears, from the anxieties of the year-long Olympics delay or the emotional upheaval caused by social unrest and division that shows no sign of abating.
Still, amid the pressures and concerns, it’s a really good thing to be Simone Biles, less than a week removed from the Opening Ceremony for the Olympic Games.
She has a house, a boyfriend, two dogs, a loving family and the run of a million-dollar gym in Spring that her parents built for her,
her teammates and future generations of gymnasts to enjoy. She has two clothing lines, enough photos from cover spreads in Vogue, Glamour and other magazines to line a wall in her home, and an eager public that hangs on her every pronouncement on social media.
Now, all she has to do to complete the picture is to be stupefyingly spectacular once more on the competition floor, a challenge she approaches in matterof-fact fashion.
“I just go out and do what I do, and whatever happens happens,” said Biles, 24.
“It is surprising. I feel like
2016 was my peak, but to now keep peaking is just absolutely incredible. My coaches have pushed me to help go beyond those limits and standards. It’s kind of crazy.”
Biles arrived in Rio as a transcendent nova in the gymnastics firmament, only three years removed from her 2013 breakout year that included the first of seven world and national championships. She was all smiles, giggles, optimism and astonishing strength and power, and she departed Brazil with four Olympic gold medals and a bronze.
However, her perceptions of the world, and ours of her, changed for good on the morning of Jan. 15, 2018, when she acknowledged she was among the hundreds of young women who were sexually assaulted by USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar under the guise of medical care.
In her Twitter message that day, Biles said she could not envision returning to the Karolyi Ranch, the national training center in the Sam Houston National Forest where she and others had been abused by Nassar. Within days, USA Gymnastics severed ties with the ranch.
Simone Biles was already a champion, an artist and a technician of the first order. But on that day, she emerged as a survivor and as a powerful voice of conviction and authority, taking her first steps into the role of advocacy that has helped define her in the last three years.
“I found my voice,” she said. “If I can be brave enough to open up, it helps other survivors and other people to speak up and to know what’s right from wrong. If I can lend a hand and help other people, that’s going to be my mission as well.”
She found ways, either through words or actions such as wearing leotards in the color of teal to commemorate sexual assault survivors, that she was still standing, that she hasn’t forgotten what happened to her, and that she isn’t going away silently.
Acceptance did not come easily. In a recent “Simone Vs. Herself ” video, Biles said sleep was the only escape from the turmoil that engulfed her after the Nassar revelations.
“Sleeping was basically better than, like, offing myself,” she said. “It was my way of escaping reality. Sleeping was the closest thing to death for me at that point.”
Finding a way to go on
She eventually re-emerged, first to life, then to gymnastics, resuming competition in 2018 after a year’s absence and continuing her unbeaten streak in world and international competition that began in 2013.
“She first went through denial and then to acceptance, and acceptance was where she started to verbalize what she endured and got the help she needed,” said her mother, Nellie
Biles.
“Simone has not let what she has gone through define her or hinder her from reaching her goals. She has come from a dark place to be that happy person, but she also will tell you about the dark place she was in.”
Emerging from the darkness, Biles has called for change and reform within USA Gymnastics and, with the federation in Chapter 11 bankruptcy, worked with her agent and sponsors to arrange a post-Olympics tour, Gold Over America, that includes an Oct. 8 stop at Toyota Center.
“Simone has a very big voice in this process,” said Lee Marshall, CEO of tour producers MagicSpace Entertainment. “She’s a strong, intelligent businesswoman as well as being the greatest athlete in the world.
“She’s focused on gymnastics but also on making this tour something that no one has ever seen before.”
Biles also broke ranks with Nike earlier this year to align herself with Athleta, the women’s apparel company owned by Gap Inc. Athleta will launch a performance wear line in Biles’ name and also sponsor the Gold Over America Tour and the Biles Invitational meet scheduled each year at the family’s World Champions Centre gym in Montgomery County.
As a younger athlete, Biles was self-conscious about her muscular physique. Now, having proved that muscular can be photogenic, she wants to use her platform to shatter stereotypes for all varieties of women.
“Athleta will work with kids and women to help raise their body confidence and have those important discussions that need to be talked about in and out of the sport,” she said.
Biles also has long championed the welfare of foster children, given that she and her siblings were in foster care before she and her younger sister, Adria, were adopted by her grandparents, Ron and Nellie Biles.
Those difficult years, coupled with the Nasser trauma, her life in and outside the gym and other elements are central themes in “Simone Vs. Herself,” produced for Facebook by Gotham Chopra’s Religion of Sports production company.
“This project started in 2019, and you can see the changes in the interviews we’ve done,” Chopra said. “There is a level-like confidence, maturity in her personal life. And by the way, I think the year has probably made her a better gymnast.”
The first four of seven episodes airing prior to the Olympics averaged 2.3 million viewers. The final two episodes will air after the Games.
The endorsements, photo shoots and social media platforms were made possible, obviously, by Biles’ performances in the Olympics and at the national and world championships.
Reaching new heights
In that realm, Biles has only gotten better. She now has four elements named for her in the International Gymnastics Federation’s scoring code of points, including one each on floor exercise, balance beam and vault added in 2018 and 2019, and she plans a second vault that will be added to the code if she performs it successfully in Tokyo.
Amazing things have become a matter of routine, but they remain amazing, even to Biles herself.
“Every day I still amaze myself with what I can do,” she said.
She also amazes Laurent and Cecile Landi, who succeeded Aimee Boorman in 2018 as Biles’ coaches. The Landis, who coached 2016 Olympic team gold medalist Madison Kocian, moved from Dallas to Houston to take on the tough task of helping a great gymnast become even greater.
“You’re not used to coaching somebody who is that talented,” Laurent Landi said. “It’s like everybody can drive a car, but only a few people can drive a Formula One car or an Indy car.”
“In my lifetime, I don’t know if I’ll see another Simone Biles,” added Cecile Landi. “Maybe somebody will prove me wrong, but I don’t think so.”
Her latest feat of wonder, premiered earlier this year at the U.S. Classic meet in Indianapolis, is a vault known as a Yurchenko double pike.
It begins with a somersault with a half-turn onto a springboard, followed by a back handspring onto the diving table and two revolutions in the air in pike position, with knees straight and the body bent at the waist.
It takes longer to explain than it does to perform, and it came out, of all things, from a practice drill to correct errors on another vault.
“We wanted to fix a little mistake,” Laurent Landi said. “She needed to have a better entry onto the vaulting table with her shoulders extended. When I saw the potential that she could do it, little by little, it has become reality. It had never been competed before.”
When added to her other skills, the Yurchenko double pike gives her a virtually insurmountable lead in event difficulty, one of two elements that go into making up the gymnastics scoring system. Her lead in that regard is often as much as two points, more than enough to assure victory in a sport that is measured into the thousandth of percentages.
“It’s an out-of-body experience,” Biles said. “I don’t know who that is, and I don’t know how she does those things. But then it’s me actually doing it. That’s strange.”
“In my lifetime, I don’t know if I’ll see another Simone Biles.”
Cecile Landi, Biles’ gymnastics coach
The best of all time
If Biles sweeps the field in the five events in which she is most likely to compete — women’s team, women’s all-around and event finals in floor exercise, balance beam and vault (she also could make the finals in uneven bars, her weakest event) — she could emerge from Tokyo with as many as five gold medals, which would tie her with Russian champion Larissa Latynina (1956-64) for the record among female gymnasts.
Then again, who’s to say she’s done after 2021? The Landis, who are French, have suggested it would be great fun to return to Paris and the 2024 Olympics with Simone Biles in tow.
She’s considering it but won’t commit until after the Olympics and the post-Olympic tour.
Under any circumstances, she’s taking time off after the Olympics, at least a year, for vacation time, family time and time with her boyfriend, Jonathan Owens, a safety with the Texans.
Owens shows up frequently on social media posts with Biles, and he made an appearance in a “Simone Vs. Herself ” episode, being victimized by one of the great sucker bets of our time. He wagered $50 that he could beat Biles in a 30-foot rope climb. It was no contest.
“He really thought he was going to win,” Biles said. “He is very strong and very talented, but he doesn’t realize that body weight is involved. If he were to pick up weights, yes, he would beat me. But body weight-wise, I’m going to beat him in a lot of exercises that we do.”
In that race, as with most other elements of life, there’s Simone Biles, and then there’s everybody else.