Simone Biles is headed to the 2024 Paris Olympics after securing her spot on the U.S. gymnastics team.
The athlete, 27, competed in the U.S. Olympic team trials on Sunday, June 30, posting a two-day, all-around total of 117.225 to secure the single automatic spot on the five-woman team. The Paris Games will be Biles’ third Olympics.
Biles previously won four gold medals and one bronze medal at the 2016 Olympics in Rio. Despite ultimately earning a silver and a bronze medal at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, she was forced to withdraw from multiple events after suffering from the “twisties,” which caused her to become disoriented in the air during the competition.
“In the back [gym], we already knew my gymnastics was kind of janky,” Biles recalled during an April appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast. “In training, I was having the twisties already, but I’m trying to push past that. I would literally tell the team … ‘I’m fighting demons. I’m fighting demons right now, but I’m going to do it for you guys.’ I literally felt like I was fighting my body and my mind to do these tricks.”
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Biles took a two-year break from competing after the Tokyo Olympics, but she returned to training in September 2022.
“I wish I could sit here and tell you it was glorious,” she told Vanity Fair in her February cover story. “When I took a break after 2016, I had the time of my life. I was doing anything and everything. But after 2020, it was kind of depressing until I started therapy and got help. I felt like a failure. Even though I was empowering so many people and speaking out about mental health, every time I talked about my experience in Tokyo — because it obviously didn’t go the way that I had planned — it stung a little bit. But all in all, it was the best decision.”
Of her potential to redeem herself at the 2024 Olympics, she insisted at the time, “If I don’t make it to Paris, it won’t absolutely crush me.”
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Biles returned to competitive gymnastics in August 2023. “It felt really good [getting back out there], especially after everything that happened over the past year,” she told NBC Sports at the time. “So, everyone that was cheering, made posters in the crowd and all of that, it made my heart melt that they still believe in me. I got back out here and did what I was training [to do], so I’m very happy with the result.”
She continued: “After everything that transpired in Tokyo, I took a lot [of time and] I worked on myself. I still do therapy weekly and it’s just been so exciting to come out here and have the confidence I had before that after everything that happened. … I feel like I lost a part of [having widespread support] sometimes and to come back here and do what I did tonight and have that support from the fans and everybody watching, I just couldn’t thank them enough.”
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Biles emphasized that she “always” wanted to compete again after Tokyo, adding, “I worked a lot on myself and I believe in myself a little bit more, it’s just coming back out here and starting those first steps again.”
In October 2023, Biles became the most decorated gymnast in history, with a career world championship medal total of 37.
