PARIS, FRANCE – JULY 28: Simone Biles of Team United States reacts after finishing her routine on the uneven bars during the Artistic Gymnastics Women’s Qualification on day two of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Bercy Arena on July 28, 2024 in Paris, France.
PARIS — Simone Biles left the floor with an injury, got her left leg taped from ankle to mid-calf, nailed a floor routine including two skills named after her, threw and hit a vault no one else in the world can do, and then after landing her uneven bars dismount with ease, blew a kiss to the crowd and moved on with her day.
Perhaps finally that will silence any questions about her being a quitter.
Three years after Biles withdrew from the Olympics because of a mental block that is commonly called the “twisties,” Biles decided to go on.
It will make for an easy story of the 180-degree pivot from Tokyo to Paris, but while everything is different, nothing has changed. Biles drove her stake in the ground in 2021, declaring herself not OK to go forward.
From that moment on, she decided that her why would be hers and hers alone — not to satisfy anyone else, not to carry any burden placed on her. Biles came back to competition because she wanted to. She is here, at 27, in Paris, because she has chosen to be.
