Paris (CNN) — Back in 2021, Simone Biles got a new tattoo inked across her collarbone: “And still I rise,” it reads, a nod to the poetry of Maya Angelou.
Those four short words fittingly encapsulate the trajectory of Biles’ life and career, particularly as she took time away from gymnastics following the tumult of the Tokyo Olympics. There, a mental block known as “the twisties” forced her to withdraw from multiple events, including the women’s team final.
“‘And still I rise’ is perfect,” Biles explains in her recently released Netflix documentary. “I feel like that’s kind of the epitome of my career and life story. I always rise to the occasion; even after all of the traumas and the downfalls, I’ve always risen.”
Indeed, in the months leading up to the Paris Olympics, Biles has risen like never before. Not long ago, she had come close to walking away from gymnastics, but is now on the cusp of enhancing her status as the greatest athlete her sport has ever seen.
This will be Biles’ third Olympics having won seven medals – four gold, one silver, and two bronze – in Rio and Tokyo. With 37 medals across the Olympics and world championships, Biles is already the most decorated gymnast – male or female – of all time.
That medal haul could grow in Paris, where Biles is likely to compete in the women’s team event on Tuesday. Sunday marks her first appearance at the Games in qualifying for team and individual events.
“Simone has been doing great. … She’s been in a really good place, and she’s been a great leader for this team,” Chellsie Memmel, the technical lead of the USA women’s gymnastics team, told reporters earlier this week.
“Together as a team, they’re all really looking forward to the competition. It is kind of the redemption tour for four of the five from the previous Olympic Games. So they’re excited. They’re all coming together for it, and Simone has been a big part of that.”
Memmel was alluding to Biles’ withdrawal from the team event in Tokyo three years after experiencing “the twisties” – a phenomenon which causes gymnasts to lose track of their body positions while twisting in mid-air.
For athletes competing at such a high level of difficulty, the consequences can be catastrophic. At the time, Biles told her teammates that she didn’t want to “do something stupid” by continuing to compete in her current state. Earlier, she bailed out of her Amanar – a backward flipping vault supposed to have two and a half twists – having completed only one and a half twists.
“If I could have run out of that stadium, I would have,” Biles says in her Netflix documentary, entitled “Simone Biles: Rising.” She describes the sensation as like a “mental block” and being “in jail with my own brain and body.”
She went on to compete in the balance beam final in Tokyo – winning a bronze after swapping her twisting dismount for a flipping one due to the ongoing impact of the twisties – and later spoke openly about prioritizing her mental health. That would become a theme in the next part of Biles’ career, as she has often highlighted the benefits of regular therapy sessions.
“I do admire what she’s done,” former Team USA gymnast Dominique Dawes, a gold medalist in the team event at the 1996 Olympics, recently told CNN’s Sanjay Gupta. “I think it’s wonderful that she listened to her inner voice in 2021.
“A lot of people attacked her, but gymnasts normally, we don’t hear our inner voice. It’s usually drowned out by our coaches or by the national governing body, where they tell us, ‘You are doing this, no matter what.’”
Biles’ return to competitive gymnastics has been long and painstaking. She was in and out of the gym for a year and a half after the Tokyo Olympics as she continued to grapple with the twisties, starting with gentle exercises on a trampoline.
The 27-year-old took part in her first event since Tokyo in August last year, winning the Core Hydration Classic, and then won five medals at the world championships in Antwerp, Belgium, several weeks later.
With that, she surpassed Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo’s record of 33 overall medals across the Olympics and the world championships, while also becoming the first woman to land the Yurchenko double pike vault at an international competition. Now named the Biles II, it was the fifth skill to be named in her honor.
She has submitted another original element on the uneven bars, traditionally Biles’ weakest event, at these Olympics: a clear hip circle forward with one-and-a-half turns to handstand, according to the International Gymnastics Federation, a variation of a skill named after former Canadian gymnast Wilhelm Weiler.
More success has come this year, with Biles winning a record-extending ninth national title last month. The Olympics have arrived at an intriguing chapter in her career, and in Paris Biles will have the opportunity to complete an extraordinary arc of redemption.
“She didn’t have that quitter’s mentality that a lot of people said she had,” added Dawes. “She’s now persevered, she’s coming back, and more than likely, she’s going to lead this team to gold.”
With so much attention on her return to the sport, it’s easy to lose focus from some of the bigger challenges that Biles has had to face.
She has testified that she was one of more than 140 female athletes sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar – later convicted and sentenced in a Michigan state court to up to 175 years in prison – and in “Simone Biles: Rising,” she speaks candidly about race, her biological mother’s substance abuse and spending time in foster care.
A senior member of the US team, Biles is a role model for young athletes both in and out of the gym. Her focus now is on adding to her legacy in Paris, and at 27, she is already set to be the oldest female American gymnast to compete at a Games in more than 70 years.
Above all, these Olympics are perhaps a timely reminder to enjoy the grace and genius of Simone Biles while you can. And if her recent performances are anything to go by, then she will only continue to rise in Paris.
