Simone Biles has already won the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Which isn't to say we aren't looking forward to seeing her in action. Gymnastics is always one of the most popular disciplines at the Summer Olympics, and Biles is the most decorated gymnast in the world. Millions of people (myself included) are counting down the days and rearranging their schedules to see Biles compete in the disciplines she's dominated for so long. She's likely the biggest draw of the Games, and if her performances in the pre-Olympic competition are any indication, it's going to be quite the spectacle.
But even if she doesn’t leave Paris with a neck loaded with gold, she will have won. I was about to write “just by being there,” but that’s not quite right. Because she’s not just “there.” She’s there at a time when women’s athletics is being taken more seriously than ever and the world is grappling with what that means, what that looks like. And she’s been a central figure in that sea change.
Of course, women across all sports continue to fight for equal pay. And recent controversies over how Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese have been treated on the court and in the press (is Clark being bullied by more experienced WNBA players? does Reese’s acceptance of name-calling make her less of a role model?) underscore the different standards faced by top female athletes, particularly those of color, compared to their male counterparts.
Still, many women are rejecting the quiet stoicism that sport has long — and dangerously — equated with greatness. They have become increasingly transparent about the mental and physical realities of elite athletics. Serena Williams has spoken openly about the impact childbirth and motherhood had on her career; Naomi Osaka withdrew from the French Open in 2021, citing mental health issues; Olympic skiing champion Lindsey Vonn has spoken openly about her struggles with depression. Olympic marathoner Lonah Chemtai Salpeter and alpine skier Mikaela Shiffrin made headlines when they discussed how their menstrual cycles affect their energy levels.
Biles is, in many ways, the embodiment of those changes. She comes into these Olympics as the heroine of a comeback story we love to cry over and cheer. But in recent interviews and with her new documentary series, “Simone Biles Rising,” she has made it clear that she is more interested in promoting awareness of the mental and physical work involved in becoming an elite athlete than in eliciting the usual thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.
Not that she hasn’t known both. Three years ago, Biles entered the Tokyo Summer Games as the greatest of all time, favored to take home all, or most, of the gymnastics gold. Instead, she suffered from “the spins,” a term gymnasts use for the sudden, inexplicable inability to keep track of their bodies as they move, quickly and dangerously, through space. As a result, Biles withdrew from most of her events, though she did win a bronze on the balance beam and was part of the U.S. team’s silver medal.
Her decision was supported by some, who considered it a brave and positive step in the advocacy of mental health, and criticized by others, who accused Biles of letting down her team and giving up her place at the top of the sport.
Biles retired from gymnastics and began therapy. Among the many pressures she faced were the dual traumas of being abused by U.S. national team doctor Larry Nassar and then becoming the standard-bearer for the case against him. Slowly, with the support of her husband, Chicago Bears backup safety Jonathan Owens, her family and her coaches, she began to consider another Olympic bid.
I know this, just as I know she stuffed all the memories of those days in Tokyo into what she calls her forbidden closet, because she documented it in “Simone Biles Rising,” a four-part Netflix docuseries directed by Katie Walsh that has the courage to begin before its ending is known. The first two episodes premiered earlier this month; the final two will presumably cover what happens in Paris, for better or worse.
The episodes leading up to the Olympics are a remarkably lucid attempt by Biles and others to explain what happened in Tokyo, what her life was like afterward, how she moved on, and what she hopes will happen after she decides to try to compete at the Paris Olympics and begins the training that will require. The next two, well, who knows?
It's an extraordinary thing to film one's comeback without knowing how it will end. But Biles is nothing if not extraordinary.
Few of us will ever experience anything remotely like the high-pressure, high-profile moment when Biles withdrew from competition in 2020. But there is a universal resonance in her subsequent willingness to dispassionately assess the reality of the situation — it wasn’t just a bad week or an isolated blip — to allow herself options, including retirement, and then essentially go back to square one to rebuild her career.
That seems to have been her intention. She understands that there is value in doing the work, whether it leads to an Olympic gold medal or a healthier life. The end doesn't have to justify the means; the means are where the real gold is found.
Traditionally, comeback stories are supposed to end with, you know, a comeback — the kind that would involve Biles standing on a podium as thousands cheer her on. And this could very well happen. As she’s shown in multiple competitions leading up to the Olympics, she remains capable of feats that few, if any, of her peers can match. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I want Biles to shove a few gold medals in the faces of all those sportscasters and pundits who called her weak, selfish, or less than a champion for acknowledging her limitations in a moment of crisis.
But who knows?
Just as she does when she approaches the vault, the beam or the mat, Biles throws herself into the void with no guarantee of outcome.
But no matter what, she has shown us, once again, what victory looks like.
