Simone Biles deserves this Paris Olympics spot, and the happiness that comes with it
MINNEAPOLIS — Simone Biles has earned this moment, in every meaning of the word.
As expected, Biles won the Olympic gymnastics trials on Sunday night and the automatic spot on the Paris Olympics team, extending an unbeaten streak in all-around competitions that began way back in 2013. Also as expected, it wasn’t close. Even with a fall on balance beam, she finished with 117.225 points, a whopping five-plus points ahead of Suni Lee.
And now she is headed to the Olympics for a third time, seeking a better experience than the nightmare of Tokyo three years ago.
"I knew I wasn't done after the performances in Tokyo," Biles said. "Getting back in the gym and trusting the process with (coaches Cecile and Laurent Landi), I knew I'd be back."
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It isn’t to add more medals to her collection. With 37 from the world championships and Olympics, including four golds from the Rio Games in 2016, Biles is already the most decorated gymnast, male or female. It isn’t to try to burnish her legacy, either. She long ago established herself as the greatest gymnast in history and another title, even a second all-around crown, isn’t going to change how history remembers her.
It’s for herself. And it’s because she can, not long after she feared she couldn’t.
Pretty much the entire world had a front-row seat to Biles’ trauma in Tokyo. Mental health issues, aggravated by the isolation caused by the strict COVID protocols, brought on a case of “the twisties,” causing her to lose her sense of where she was in the air. Unwilling to risk her physical safety, Biles withdrew during the team final. Without her, the U.S. women finished second to Russia in the team competition. It was the first time since the 2010 world championships that Americans didn't win the team title.
Biles also missed the all-around, vault, uneven bars and floor exercise finals. She returned for the balance beam final, winning a bronze medal with a reworked routine that didn’t require her to twist.
"I never pictured going to another Olympic Games after Tokyo just because of the circumstances. I never thought I would go back in the gym again, be twisting, feel free," she said. "So it's actually really exciting."
Biles took more than a year off, unsure if she wanted to do elite gymnastics again. Even when she did return, it took time to rebuild her trust in herself.
“I didn’t trust myself to do gymnastics,” Biles said after the U.S. championships, where she extended her own record with her ninth title. “I knew that it would come if I started training again, but it was really hard to trust myself. The mental part was harder than the physical.”
She has done the work, speaking openly about prioritizing her mental well-being as much as her physical health. Her weekly appointments with her therapist are as non-negotiable as her training and recovery sessions.
The difference is obvious. Biles is, if possible, a better gymnast than she's ever been.
"She's the most talented athlete I've ever worked with," Cecile Landi said last week. "And so we just knew if she could get her mental game as well as her physical game, then she would be close to unstoppable."
Her outlook is different, too. The people she tried so badly to please who turned on her in Tokyo? The so-called fans and patriots who piled on, subjecting her to hate and vitriol when she was at her lowest? She now knows she can't win with them, and allowing them space in her brain does her no good.
She has realized she can't do this for any other reason than that she wants to. And she does.
She is often laughing and smiling on the floor, rather than looking weighed down or burdened as she once did. When a 106-year-old military veteran said on the in-house broadcast during a break in the action Sunday that Biles was his favorite, she stood in front of him, beaming as she saluted him by making a heart shape with her hands.
She's embraced her role as team leader, cheering enthusiastically for women who technically could be considered rivals and stepping in when she notices one of them isn't OK.
"My 'why' is nobody is forcing me to do it," Biles said. "I wake up every day and choose to grind in the gym and come out here and perform for myself, just to remind myself that I can still do it."
It has been hard-earned, both a trip to her third Olympics and this new peace of mind. But earned they are, and no one deserves either more.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.