Paris 2024 Olympics: Simone Biles returned to the Olympic stage. Here’s a look back at her road from Tokyo to Paris
If you last watched Simone Biles compete at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, held in the summer of 2021, a lot has changed in the gymnastics superstar’s life since.
Biles left those Games with a team silver medal and a balance beam bronze, the latter a triumphant return after she had withdrawn from the women’s team final and four subsequent individual finals to prioritise her mental health as she dealt with what gymnasts call ‘the twisties.’
Her bravery sparked a global conversation about mental health in sports, but Tokyo was difficult for Biles.
“Working five years for a dream and just having to give it up, it was not easy at all,” she told NBC’s Hoda Kotb at the time.
She went further earlier this year during an interview with Alex Cooper for the ‘Call Her Daddy’ podcast.
“I just wanted to cry and be like, this was the shittiest thing ever. I don't know why it happened. I just wanted to sulk in my feelings and to be by myself,” said Biles. “I didn't want anybody to tell me that I was okay anymore because I'm tired of everybody telling me it's okay. It's okay to you. It's not okay to me. What happened was not okay.”
In her return to the Olympic Games, Biles is using a new approach - in and out of the gym.
What Biles has changed since Tokyo.
Those feelings of disappointment have served as motivation and the spark to change so much about how the 27-year-old has trackled training and more ahead of her third Olympic Games.
"I'm making a bigger effort into taking care of my mind and my body, which includes going to therapy once every week, usually on Thursday is kind of my therapeutic day and I try to take a day for myself," Biles told Olympics.com last year prior to the World Championships. "It's really important that I'm taking care of my mind as much as I do my body, especially in this sport and outside of the sport."
Outside the gym, Biles’ life has changed drastically, as well.
She wed NFL player Jonathan Owens, a safety for the Chicago Bears, in May 2023.
That’s given her a wider outlook on life, Biles says.
“[I’m] even being intentional outside of the gym, making time for me and my husband, making time for my family, making time for those vacations, which before I wouldn’t say necessarily I skipped because y’all know I have my vacation time,” Biles says with her trademark giggle. “But I feel like before, it’s just like you put relationships and all of that on the back burner.
“I was, like, married to gymnastics,” she continued, “and now I feel like I’m attached to so many other things and gymnastics is just a part of my day because at the end of my practice, I’m like, ‘Well, I get to go home to a house, to my husband, to my dogs, to all this stuff,’ where before it was like, man, gym, gym, gym, gym.”
What hasn’t changed for Biles
One thing remains very much the same: Biles’ dominance.
Since her return to competition last August at the U.S. Classic, she’s continued her unbeaten streak in the all-around, a run that dates back to 2013.
Biles picked up her eighth and nineth U.S. crowns in 2023 and 2024, respectively, setting the record.
She soared onto the global stage last September at the World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, fittingly site of her worlds debut in 2013.
There, she helped Team USA to the title before grabbing all-around, balance beam and floor exercise golds. She was also the vault silver medal winner.
In her opening round performance at the Olympic Games Paris 2024, Biles was once again her sparkling self, soaring to the all-around lead and finishing nearly two points clear of Brazil's Rebeca Andrade. She led the U.S. women to Tuesday's (30 July) team final, while also punching her ticket to four individual finals: all-around, vault, balance beam and floor exercise.