Add Category
Renowned US gymnast Simone Biles says she "thanks God" for her poor performance on the vault during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, a new documentary series has revealed.
While attempting to complete an "Amanar" — one of the highest difficulty vaults, requiring 2.5 twists in the air — the 27-year-old got a case of the "twisties". This dangerous phenomenon, in which gymnasts lose their sense of position in the air, saw the champion bail on the move after only 1.5 rotations, landing unsteadily.
Shortly afterwards, Biles pulled out of team finals — followed by the individual all-around, vault, floor exercise and uneven bars finals — to focus on her mental health.
Expectations for the greatest gymnast of all time (GOAT), who also happens to be a dark-skinned Black woman, had been overwhelmingly high going into the early pandemic-era Olympics.
At the time, Biles's very public exit shocked the sporting world and prompted a torrent of abuse, with many accusing Biles of letting her team down and of being a "quitter".
But she's thankful to God for the moment because it forced her to sit with "everything that had happened in my career that I'd shoved down in a box".
Simone Biles Rising caught all of this on camera
The Netflix docuseries about Biles started filming before the Tokyo Olympics, held in 2021. It kept going as Biles decided to compete for a spot on the 2024 US Olympic team, leading right up to the final days before Paris.
It captures how competing in front of empty stadiums, in the absence of loved ones and in the depths of the pandemic, had a huge impact on Biles's mental health in 2021. Around the same time, the then-24-year-old was preparing to speak at the US Congress probe into former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, and his sexual abuse of her and hundreds of other women.
In Simone Biles Rising, Biles considers the ongoing impact of that sexual assault, and how that experience — paired with her time in foster care as a child, subsequent adoption and prominent place in the public eye as a young Black woman — have affected her mental health.
She reckons with the overwhelming shame she experienced over dropping out of the 2020 Olympics, and the pedestal society has placed her on despite all her requests to be treated as the fallible human being she is.
And we get an inside look at how her loved ones have supported her throughout this time — including her husband Jonathan Owens, whom the gymnast married in 2023.
So, a lot of really big and important stuff. But over the course of the four-part series, these five smaller revelations also stood out to us.
1. Biles didn't start taking training seriously again until last year
Biles returned to the gym pretty quickly after Tokyo — but only casually, to flip and play around on the mat and trampolines.
"Every comeback that I've had [before Tokyo], no matter what happens I've still come back and tried to do everything full force, full difficulty," she says in episode one.
Biles says she spent months working out what she still felt comfortable doing, healing — and getting lost.
"A couple of days I'd be OK and then I'd be lost for a couple of days, then I'd be OK for another day, then I'd be lost again," she says.
This went on for about a year-and-a-half, with Biles sometimes only showing up at the gym once every three months.
"[In] 2023, that's when I took it serious."
Let's think about that for a moment. Not only did Biles only start seriously training in 2023, but she went on to win her sixth all-around world title and become the most-decorated gymnast in history less than three months after returning to competition.
She then went on to win the 2024 US gymnastics trials. After only returning to the gym last year! Talk about the GOAT…
2. Biles knows you have opinions on her hair — and she doesn't care
But she would like to point out that her hair is very healthy "and not at all crunchy", like some people on the internet love to yell into the void.
"People are way too comfortable commenting things. I think the beauty standard, everything, is just too much," Biles says in episode two.
"You just can't win."
It's important to remember this 27-year-old woman is showing up, competing and (more often than not) out-performing every other gymnast in a world in which Eurocentric beauty standards have long been the ideal. In gymnastics, Black gymnasts whose bodies and hair do not fit this rigid mould are marginalised.
"Gymnastics 20 years ago and 30 years ago, the general culture had a lot of rigidity around your physical appearance, your eating, your everything," Dr Onnie Willis Rogers, a professor of psychology and National Collegiate Athletics Association gymnastics champion, explains.
"Looking in a particular way was really important, and so hair was a big to-do in the sport of gymnastics. Everyone had their hair in a particular up-do and it was very clear the standard of what is beautiful was blonde, straight hair," Dr Rogers says.
"And so for Black girls who have naturally curly, kinky, coily hair, it automatically sets us outside the possibility of 'beautiful'."
This was 1996 Olympic champion Dominique Dawes's experience.
"My body type was not what they embraced. My hair wasn't what they were looking for … and so I knew that who I was was automatically a deduction," Dawes says.
Even when Black women gymnasts do succeed, they are still policed. We saw this following Gabby Douglas's historic 2012 Olympic win. After the then-16-year-old gymnast became the first African American to win the individual all-around, she faced immense criticism over her hair — as Biles still does today.
"People were like, 'does not compute', 'this is not what the crowning jewel, the all-round gymnastics champion, is supposed to look like'," 1992 Olympic champion Betty Okino remembers.
Loading Instagram content
3. Biles is extremely into greige interiors, matching couples fits and kitchen word art
If you follow her on Instagram you'll probably already be across this, but Biles is living her best "football wife" — AKA cis-het newlywed — life right now with her husband Owens, who plays NFL for the Chicago Bears.
They're building a house together in Biles's home state, Texas, which will surely be a visual feast for us to consume upon its completion but, in the meantime, Simone Biles Rising gave us a few glimpses inside the house they currently share.
And that is how we learned three things:
- In what is perhaps a reaction to the maximalist family homes of the 90s and early 00s, Biles and Owens seem to be extremely into greige interiors/the showroom aesthetic.
- They have word art on display in their kitchen that reads, "It's good to be home".
- The newlyweds are very into couples photoshoots, and have at least four such portraits hanging in their home. In two of those four images, they are wearing matching ripped denim and white T-shirt looks. Maybe they'll display the images from this Autumnal shoot in their new home?
Loading Instagram content
4. Biles has a 'forbidden Olympic closet'
It houses all her 2020 Tokyo Olympics gear — from her San Francisco to Tokyo plane ticket, to her opening and closing ceremony uniform.
The closet is tucked away in a spare room in her current house.
"A lot of this stuff is good keepsake, but it's in this closet because I never really come in this room," Biles shares.
"I used to sit here and just cry and cry and cry … ask God why this happened to me."
She still feels a way about touching some of the items within it, including her 2020 leotard.
We are assuming Biles's 2016 Olympic gear gets pride of place somewhere else.
5. Biles has her own reserved parking space at the gym she trains at
There's nothing else to say about this — we just had to point it out because it's so cool and of course the GOAT should have her own reserved parking space at the gym she trains at.
Simone Biles Rising is streaming now on Netflix.