Simone Biles reflects on Tokyo Olympics in ‘Rising’: ‘I felt like I was in jail with my own brain and body’
By Lisa Respers France, CNN
(CNN) — Gymnastics champion Simone Biles reflects on her previous Olympic competitions as she prepares for the Paris games in a new Netflix docuseries, “Simone Biles Rising.”
Biles made the surprising decision to withdraw from competition at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after she was becoming disoriented in her routines and experiencing “the twisties.” In episode 1 of the four-part docuseries, filmed as the event was taking place and following her to the Paris games, Biles describes what she was feeling.
“I’m getting lost in my skills,” she says in a selfie video at the time. “I just don’t get how. It’s like, I’m so prepared that I don’t know if I’m overthinking. It’s getting to the point where it’s becoming dangerous because I’m getting lost on all of my floor skills.”
“I kinda felt like I was in jail with my own brain and body, just like, I just feel so ashamed,” Biles recalled after her decision to stop competing.
Biles, the most-decorated gymnast in history, said she struggled with the intense public scrutiny she faced for prioritizing her mental and physical health.
“Everywhere I went I felt like they could see ‘loser’ or ‘quitter’ across my head,” she reflects in the series. “I always felt like everyone was staring at me, even if they weren’t.”
In hindsight, Biles believes she was experiencing “a trauma response of everything that has happened”
Biles has testified that she was one of more than 140 female athletes sexually abused by former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar, who was convicted and sentenced in a Michigan state court to up to 175 years in prison.
“Everything that has happened, I’ve just like, ‘I’ll push it down, shove it down, wait until my career’s done, go fix it,” she says in the series. “Then something like this happens — and unfortunately, to me, it happened at the Olympics.”
As for her decision to compete in Paris this month, Biles is doing it for herself.
“This time coming back, it’s truly for myself,” Biles says. “I never want to look back in ten years and say, ‘What if I could have done another Olympic cycle?’ I at least tried. I didn’t want to be afraid of the sport anymore because you know so much has happened in this sport, so much has scared the living s— out of me that I couldn’t have it take that one last thing from me.”
“Simone Biles Rising” is streaming now on Netflix.
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