Current:Home > ScamsWhat's next for Simone Biles? After dominant return, 2024 Paris Olympics beckon-LoTradeCoin
What's next for Simone Biles? After dominant return, 2024 Paris Olympics beckon
View Date:2024-12-24 00:50:06
HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Simone Biles had to know the questions were coming.
After her dominant victory Saturday night at the U.S. Classic, and her triumphant, joyful return to competitive gymnastics, everyone was bound to wonder: What's next? Or, perhaps more pointedly: What's Biles' plan for the Paris Olympics next summer?
"Right now, I think I should just embrace what happened today, be happy," Biles said after Saturday's meet, in her first public comments about her comeback.
"It's just like, when you get married, they ask when you're having a baby. When you come to Classic, they're asking you about the Olympics. I think we're just trying to take it one step at a time, and we'll see."
It was a measured response − and one that belies both the ease and determination with which Biles has returned.
Even after a 732-day hiatus, she showed Saturday night that she is still the proverbial gold standard in women's gymnastics, nailing a few of her eponymous skills while putting up an all-around score of 59.100, which would have been good enough to win the most recent world championships by a healthy margin.
SPORTS NEWSLETTER:Sign up to get the latest news and features sent directly to your inbox
Though Biles said she's trying to be more intentional about living in the present, her likely path forward over the next 12 months is clear. With her performance at the U.S. Classic, Biles qualified easily for the U.S. championships in San Jose, California, which are less than three weeks away. The 2023 world championships in Antwerp, Belgium will follow a month later. And then, barring any surprises, Paris.
Though Biles isn't publicly committing to an Olympic push just yet, she sure hinted at it with some of her comments Saturday, as she compared her last Games to the next.
"I think it'll just be different," she said. "We're still dealing with COVID, but not to the capacity. We're going to get to have our family and our friends go, and we'll get to be in the village. So the experience will be so different that we won't be stuck in our thoughts all day."
It was almost two years ago to the day that mental health issues prompted Biles to withdraw from most of her scheduled events at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. It was the mounting scrutiny, she elaborated Saturday, that ultimately forced her to take a step back − a combination of external criticism on social media, and even nitpicking from within her "inside team."
In the leadup to Tokyo, Biles said she was told she was "our gold medal token," counted on to be the smiling face of Team USA and USA Gymnastics. She was struggling to manage that pressure, and her own internal expectations, while also trying to support her younger teammates, who had never experienced the Olympics before.
"There were a lot of things that, since I had already been to an Olympic Games, they were also expecting out of me, that I kind of couldn't do my own job," Biles said, while declining to identify the person or people behind the "gold medal token" talk.
Ultimately, she won just two of the four or five Olympic medals she had been expected to win in Tokyo, neither of them gold. And yet, Biles said she's "obviously … very happy that happened," because it gave her an opportunity to focus on herself. She started meeting with a therapist once a week, and she married NFL player Jonathan Owens in April. (Biles competed Saturday wearing a silicone wedding band she said she purchased on Amazon for "like $15.")
"Her priorities have shifted and changed," said Alicia Quinn, the women's strategic lead for USA Gymnastics. "When you are doing it for yourself and you realize that it’s for the joy of the sport and not allowing the pressures of something else impact you that way, it can be more fun."
Biles said she returned to the gym in September, started working out twice a day in January and "really buckled down" in May, after the wedding festivities were over. And she soon overcame her bout of "the twisties," which popped up in Tokyo.
"She could do everything that she was doing before (Tokyo)," her coach Cecile Landi said Friday, while adding that they've tried to design routines to "make her as mentally and physically comfortable as she could handle."
Biles, for her part, believes she's already in better shape than she was in 2021.
"I think that goes mentally and physically," she said.
Biles would be 27 years old at the start of the Paris Games, an age by which most Olympic gymnasts have long since retired. She said she feels more mature this time around, more purposeful. "Nobody's forcing me out here," she said. With 19 career world championships, four Olympic gold medals and skills named after her in three different events, she has little to prove to anyone but herself.
"It's just about really taking care of my body right now," Biles said. "So that's what we're doing − and it's working. So we're going to continue to do that."
She grinned.
"But don't ask about 2028," she said.
Contact Tom Schad at [email protected] or on social media @Tom_Schad
veryGood! (426)
Related
- Justine Bateman feels like she can breathe again in 'new era' after Trump win
- March's full moon will bring a subtle eclipse with it early Monday morning
- Almost 60, Lenny Kravitz talks workouts, new music and why he's 'never felt more vibrant'
- Democratic state senator files paperwork for North Dakota gubernatorial bid
- Olivia Munn Says She “Barely Knew” John Mulaney When She Got Pregnant With Their Son
- Alabama gambling bill faces uncertain outlook in second half of legislative session
- The Diane von Furstenberg x Target Collection Is Officially Here—This Is What You Need To Buy ASAP
- Recent assaults, attempted attacks against Congress and staffers raise concerns
- Joey Graziadei Details Why Kelsey Anderson Took a Break From Social Media
- Elizabeth Berkley Pays Homage to Showgirls With Bejeweled Glam
Ranking
- Artem Chigvintsev Returns to Dancing With the Stars Ballroom Amid Nikki Garcia Divorce
- Sweet Reads sells beloved books and nostalgic candy in Minnesota
- Kate Middleton Breaks Silence on Health Journey to Share Cancer Diagnosis
- Israel’s Netanyahu rebuffs US plea to halt Rafah offensive. Tensions rise ahead of Washington talks
- Police capture Tennessee murder suspect accused of faking his own death on scenic highway
- Kate Middleton Is Receiving Preventative Chemotherapy: Here's What That Means
- For Haitian diaspora, gang violence back home is personal as hopes dim for eventual return
- Man pleads guilty in fatal kidnapping of 2-year-old Michigan girl in 2023
Recommendation
-
Tua Tagovailoa playing with confidence as Miami Dolphins hope MNF win can spark run
-
Pair of massive great white sharks surface off Florida coast within a minute of each other
-
California governor, celebrities and activists launch campaign to protect law limiting oil wells
-
Is there a winner of the $977M Mega Millions jackpot? Numbers have been drawn and it’s time to wait
-
Miami Marlins hiring Los Angeles Dodgers first base coach Clayton McCullough as manager
-
King Charles III Shares Support for Kate Middleton Amid Their Respective Cancer Diagnoses
-
Kelly Ripa's Trainer Anna Kaiser Invites You Inside Her Fun Workouts With Daughter Lola Consuelos
-
California’s Climate Leaders Vow to Hold Fossil Fuel Companies to Account