By D. Maan, Jadetimes News
Simone Biles Seeks Ninth Olympic Medal in Paris All Around Final
The first chapter of Simone Biles' Olympic comeback is complete. Now comes the next. Days after leading Team USA to gold and becoming the most decorated American gymnast in Olympic history, the 27 year old now turns her focus to the all-around final as she seeks to win a ninth Olympic medal and sixth gold.
This comes after Biles nearly walked away from gymnastics due to the mental block known as "the twisties" during the Tokyo Olympics. There were no such signs Tuesday. Biles led off the US and paced it to a dominant gold medal score of 171.296.
"I started today off with therapy this morning," Biles said after the team event. "I told my therapist I was feeling calm and ready." She concluded her day with a dynamic floor routine at Paris' Bercy Arena to rapturous applause.
At 12:15 p.m. ET Thursday, Biles will return to the same venue for the all-around final. She will be competing alongside teammate Suni Lee, the defending champion who has also gone through a comeback trail from kidney disease last year. With both of them strongly tipped for podium places for the US, the competition takes them through four rotations: vault, uneven bars, beam, and floor. Another strong contender would be Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, who made history with a bronze win in the team final and a silver medal in the all around in Tokyo.
Yet all eyes are peeled for Biles, increasingly one of the faces of these Games. Indeed, much of her rising popularity comes not just from her gymnastic feats but from an off the mat attitude. "She's fun to be around, relatable, and what you see is what you get," said Katie Walsh, director of the Netflix documentary "Simone Biles: Rising," which dives deep into Biles' journey and advocacy for mental health.
The documentary details Biles' Tokyo Olympics experience and her subsequent mental health advocacy, including her testimony against former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar. "Leading up to the Paris Olympics, we wanted to show a larger audience that Simone was not only the G.O.A.T. [greatest of all time] but also human," Walsh said. It rocks the world of Biles after Tokyo, frustrated and low in self-confidence, to now confident with a balanced life and newly married.
The next in the series, the performances of Biles in Paris, are underway. And this Olympics, shaping up as a compelling redemption story for the five time gold medalist. "I think we all had something to prove from Tokyo and tonight we did just that," Biles said after the win in team event.
And as the finale of the all around approaches, so is Simone Biles calm and poised to compete for an even greater cementing of her legacy as the greatest gymnast ever.
