There used to be a time when Simone Biles would find “beauty in the blindness” ahead of the Olympics, reveling in not knowing what she did not know.
That was eight years ago. Back when she was still just a teenager and still kind of “ditzy.”
Those days are long gone. The evidence is not just on Biles drivers’ license or her marriage certificate, but in how the now 27-year-old is able to see beyond herself. The tunnel vision that most great athletes have in pursuit of greatness has fallen away.
Photo: AFP
Maybe that is the biggest difference between the national title the gymnastics star won on Sunday night — with an all-around total of 119.750 — and her first more than a decade ago.
The defining moment of Biles’ victory was not a twist, a turn or a jump, but a walk. It came early on, when she watched 2020 Olympic champion and good friend Sunisa Lee spin awkwardly in the air during her vault and land on her back with a mixture of surprise and fear spreading across her face.
“I was kind of thinking that this was over,” Lee said.
Then Biles appeared at her side, unprompted. She knew exactly where Lee was in that moment better than anyone. Three years ago at the Tokyo Games, a similar wayward vault by Biles started a chain of events that led to her withdrawing from multiple competitions and dragging the discussion on the importance of mental health front and center.
Watching Lee, who has spent most of the last two years battling kidney issues that have made her weight yo-yo and complicated her training, try to gather herself, Biles left her World Champions Centre teammates and gave Lee the kind of support Biles relied on so heavily back in Japan.
“I know how traumatizing it is, especially on a big stage like this, and I didn’t want her to get in her head, so we just went and talked about it,” Biles said.
The two retreated off the floor to talk, with Biles reminding Lee she “could do hard things.”
When they returned, Biles stood next to the uneven bars cheering Lee on as she rebounded with a brilliant, if somewhat watered down, routine that scored a 14.500 and helped her finish a promising fourth with 110.650 points.
“I know I was having a hard time and she was just there to help lift me up,” Lee said.
Biles is at a stage in her unparalleled career where the joy she gets from the sport is no longer centered strictly on the quality of her performance.
While she joked that she believes she’s “aging like fine wine,” it is telling that she saved her biggest smile afterward when talking about the five World Champions Centre teammates — most of them a decade younger — who are joining her at Olympic trials in Minneapolis later this month.
“That’s kind of what excites me because I think they have long careers ahead of them,” Biles said. “So if I can do anything to help them, right now and in the future, that’s what I’m going to do.”
While Biles remains above the fray as usual, there is plenty of competition for the other four spots on the five-woman US team who are heading to Paris as heavy favorites to return to the top of the podium after finishing second to Russia in Tokyo three years ago.
Skye Blakely, 19, put together another impressive performance and heads to Minneapolis with plenty of momentum after finishing second, 5.900 points behind Biles.
Additional reporting by Reuters
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