The meaning of Simone Biles’ return to the Paris Olympics

II’m sitting at the kitchen table in the middle of the day, with my laptop and a bowl of soup in front of me, but my eyes are fixed on the TV. Simone Biles is staggering across the screen, competing for Team USA in women’s gymnastics, and I’m ugly crying with a dry cookie dangling from my open mouth.

There is a part of the Olympics that is exciting for all of us – the unifying power of sports, the vicarious glory of national pride, imagining that we know what it must be like for an athlete to carry the weight of their country on their shoulders and triumph. . But for me, with this sport, you also have to know what it takes, on a specific, granular level, to live in a gymnast’s body.

Simone Biles started gymnastics at age 6. Which is late, as she herself often says – many girls who transcend into elite gymnastics start in childhood. I was 7 years old, but I had already started ballet, already attuned to the need to control every part of my body, down to the curve of my fingers and toes. The appeal was immediate: Mastering a new skill is a hassle-free way to gain adult approval, and a team is a group of friends ready to support each other through the toughest years. Many gyms have a bell you can ring when you reach a new milestone — and everyone, even the teenagers on the boys’ team, stop what they’re doing to cheer.

See more information: How the US Women’s Gymnastics Team Rewrote Its History and Reclaimed Olympic Gold

Over the years, I went from a complete beginner to a Level 5 competitor, and finally to Level 7 – which was then the first of the “optional” levels, where gymnasts begin to differentiate themselves and get their own routines, in instead of standardized routines. “mandatory” level routines. Level 7 was as far as I got. I often say that I gave up due to a physical limitation, but it was equally mental. I felt gray, worn out, and finished. I was 13.

When I left gymnastics behind, I was still a child. But my story as a gymnast is one of the most indelible things about me – about anyone who has experienced the physical and spiritual commitment of competitive gymnastics. Most of us learn early what it means to retire, to let go of something that has been everything to you, and to wonder how you will fill the void. And watching this year’s Olympic team — especially Biles, whose setback at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics made global news — there’s a small part of me that’s opening up.

When you step into the role of a competitive gymnast, even years before reaching Olympic caliber levels, you give up a lot of things. You practice hours after school every day and longer during the summer, replacing school time with gym time. You miss sleepovers and stay home from camp. You watch what you eat, saying no thanks to sweets, pizza, and chips. You wait for your period while the girls in your class apply pads and whisper. You study your thighs, your biceps, and your calves in the mirror and shake off the pain of what the kids call you at school. You do your homework at night with a bag of ice under your hamstring or hanging from your ankle. You learn how to tape body parts together, how to carry a family-sized bottle of ibuprofen in your backpack, how to treat the skin that has been peeled off your palms with a heavy, smelly ointment while you sleep.

See more information: The story behind Simone Biles’ viral Instagram caption celebrating Team USA’s victory

But you also grow up fast. You learn to take responsibility for managing your own time, to create routine and discipline to ensure your own success, to set goals, divide them into stages and feel the satisfaction of achieving them. Your body becomes strong and capable. You break your school’s physical education records for 100m dash, bench press and vertical jump. You beat any boy who dares to challenge you in arm wrestling. You’ve mastered the art of extreme focus, tuning out the noise to apply your full attention to the task in front of you as if your life depended on it, because sometimes it does. You surprise yourself with what you can do. You learn to fly.

And giving up all of that – especially when you’ve accepted all the pain, suffering, and sacrifices that come with it – is like leaving behind the best parts of yourself. Who are you when you can no longer tie your wrists and fly high?

That’s why Biles’ return to the Olympics after dropping out of competition three years ago is so important, and why I can’t stop crying when I watch her compete. The road to gymnastics greatness is paved with girls who exploded, girls who collapsed, girls who decided it wasn’t worth it and threw in the towel. Some of us look back and marvel at how strong and fearless we were. Some of us blame ourselves for failing. What we all have in common is that we fought in gymnastics and gymnastics won.

Three years ago, it seemed like even Biles, the GOAT, had been defeated by the sport. She did the right thing by prioritizing her safety, and it’s easy to feel now that the choice was obvious, but at the time we feared she was done. It was devastating and physically painful to see her disorientation because of her curves, the mental block that made her lose track of her body in space, and it was devastating to see how she withdrew from event after event. What a way it would have been to end a career.

But Biles persevered. She refused to let her story end in secret. She showed up at the Paris Olympics, ready as ever, and did her best. That’s winning – the gold is just a bonus.