• More sport Simone Biles, the star who said "enough"
  • More sport Simone Biles believes she should have given up Tokyo 2020 "long before" the Olympic event

It will be in the early hours of this Saturday, at 2.00 am in Spain. It will be in Hoffman Estates, a small Illinois town near Lake Michigan. It will be in the US Classic, the competition that gives access to the United States Championship. It will be, it is assumed, on the parallel bars, then on the balance beam, on the ground and finally on the colt. It will be the return of the best gymnast in history, Simone Biles, two years after the mental block she suffered during the Tokyo Olympics. "I feel the weight of the world on my shoulders," he said after making unusual mistakes during the exercises and giving up several tests at the last minute appealing to his physical safety.

The American said she suffered the phenomenon known as twisties, which causes gymnasts to lose their sense of orientation when they exercise and are in the air. Then, the risks of falls and injuries increase. "It's the craziest feeling. Not having a millimeter of control over your body. What's scarier is that since I have no idea where I am, I also don't know how I'm going to fall," he explained in 2021.

Biles returns and the sport celebrates it despite the many questions that remain around. At 26, enthusiasm places her again at the top at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, where she can be a star again, hang several golds, amaze the world with some unprecedented pirouette. But, but, but. His return is unknown from the beginning: Will he really compete? Can you withdraw at the last minute?

Partial return

Biles is one of 40 gymnasts registered for the full US Classic program and USA Gymnastics confirmed her presence weeks ago, but her entourage has hinted that anything can happen. In fact, you will most likely participate, but save yourself some testing, especially asymmetric bars.

"The hardest thing for me will always be the bars, both physically and mentally. But going around in any event is still complicated. When the dizziness started, I worked with them in the gym and a year later they disappeared. But they came back. And I was petrified. Now I can say that I'm fine, that I'm back around and that everything is going well," she wrote on Instagram, in conversation with a fan, a rare communication policy, very modern, very empty. Biles has not yet explained, in a press conference or interview, how she is doing. She is only known from her Stories or her TikTok clips, where she has shown bits of her training.

His own comeback became known as such, from a series of short videos that revealed he had returned to training. A few months ago Biles began to appear as an extra, behind, far away, in the TikTok of gymnasts like Jordan Childs or Tiana Sumanasekera, who were also preparing at the World Champions Center in Houston, the gym she owns, and a slip of an acquaintance served as an announcement. In early June, the husband of Alice Sacramone, a former gymnast and current USA Gymnastics boarder, said in a podcast, "I don't know if this is public anymore or not, but Simone Biles will be competing again soon." And so on until this week.

Biles' Plan

Supposedly Biles' plan is to shine in the US Classic, qualify for the United States Championship and get a place for the World Cup in Antwerp that will take place in early October, but the enigma remains. In the competition in Illinois Biles will share spotlights with Sunisa Lee, the new star, current Olympic champion of the entire program, or Jade Carey, who in Tokyo won the floor exercise, but all the attention will be on her.

At the moment, Biles only knows what she has done outside of gymnastics since the Tokyo 2020 Games. The owner of four Olympic golds has built a lifetime outside of the sport, what she longed for when she was at the top. Last year she married Jonathan Owens, a defender of American football for the Green Bay Packers, moved to a new mansion near Houston, broke up with Nike and created an entire clothing line with Athleta – the brand that also attracted Allyeson Felix – and multiplied its sponsors. All this always with mental health care as a flag. "I do a lot of therapy, I go once a week for almost two hours," he confessed.

Her activism even took her to the White House and to be received by the president of the United States, Joe Biden, who presented her with the Medal of Freedom. With Larry Nassar, the doctor who abused her and many other gymnasts, stabbed in jail last month, doomed, Biles' life seems poised for her return. Now it only remains to know if she has definitively overcome the dizziness and can return to who she was, that is, the best gymnast in history. The first step is already announced. It will be this morning, at 2.00 am.

  • Articles Javier Sánchez
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