Twenty-six-year-old gymnast Simone Biles holds eight national titles, 25 world medals, and seven Olympic medals, and has sparked a national conversation about mental health. She has returned to compete in her first international competition since the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. On October 8th, 2023, she took part in the World Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, the same city where she won her first world title a decade ago. 

In Tokyo, Biles withdrew from the Olympic team final after feeling lost in the air during a vault. She said she was “having a little bit of the twisties,” referring to a mental block in which gymnasts feel disoriented and are unable to complete twisting elements as usual. The only event in which she continued on to the final was beam. On that apparatus, Biles altered her dismount to avoid twisting and won a bronze medal. 

As she moves forward, Biles has developed a new mindset, focusing on her mental and physical health rather than being result-driven. She has tried to protect herself from judgment by not sharing her goals, and insisted that she was not fixated on the number of medals she won at the World Championships. After hearing from critics on social media, Biles responded saying,“I had to prove to myself that I could still get out here, twist… I could prove all the haters wrong, that I’m not a quitter.” She continued, “As long as I’m out there twisting again, having and finding the joy for gymnastics again, who cares?” Her interviews have also been carefully regulated, with none scheduled until after her competitive return. Biles said she has also tried to limit sponsorship obligations. 

The routines Biles performed at the World Championships were not the hardest tricks within her capability, but were routines that she could execute confidently. It didn’t include her signature beam dismount (a double-twisting double tuck), or the triple-twisting double tuck on floor, another element that carries her name. However, there was one new tumbling pass: a Yurchenko double pike, the hardest vault in women’s gymnastics, now known as the Biles II.

Biles left Antwerp with five medals, four of them gold, and reassurance that the mental block that rattled her in Tokyo wouldn’t reemerge when she returned to a similar event. She is expected to attend her third Olympics next year in Paris, which will be similar to the World Championships, but with a heightened level of global attention and scrutiny. Biles will enter Paris as one of the most famous U.S. Olympians, and although the pressure will be unavoidable, she and her team will aim to mitigate its toll.

Information retrieved from The Washington Post.