Simone Biles says she felt physically ill watching other gymnasts do the one thing that her body simply wouldn’t do.
On the final night of competition, the American made a dramatic return to the Ariake Gymnastics Centre – havingCredit:The balance beam is Biles’ least favourite apparatus and the only one on which she didn’t win gold five years ago. But, as fate would have it, it was the only apparatus she felt safe to compete on after she was unable to remove the performance gremlins which caused her to withdraw from competition on the night of the team final.
“That was really hard because I had trained my whole life, I was physically ready, I was fine, and then this happens. It was something that was so out of my control.” Whatever she tried, she couldn’t convince her body to do something it had done so instinctively since she was a little girl learning to cartwheel. Seeing all the other gymnasts do it didn’t help.
That Biles stayed in Tokyo to try to sort out work her problems tells us a little about what drives this four-time Olympic champion.No one would have questioned her had she decided to fly home the morning after the team final. No one would have questioned her had she decided to sit out the beam final – as she had the other apparatus finals – instead of competing with a watered-down routine.
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