How Simone Biles rebuilt trust in her body ahead of Paris 2024
It’s part of a process that Biles embarked on after withdrawing from the women’s team final and four subsequent individual finals at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games to prioritise her mental health as she dealt with the now infamous ‘twisties.’
Biles calls her post-Tokyo period a time of getting “the help that I deserved,” one that also included weekly therapy sessions – every Thursday, even throughout the 2023 World Championships and in Paris.
Armed with new mental approaches, Biles says her return wasn’t always smooth sailing – just that she was more equipped to deal with hiccups along the way.
“I feel like [there were] only one or two times where I got lost,” she says of whether she ever dealt with the twisties in her post-Tokyo training. “But we knew how to regulate all those emotions, feelings, and doubts that came with it. We didn’t freak out too much. We’re just like, ‘It’s okay. Let’s not panic. Let’s go back to basics. We’ll work our way up, and then, in a couple of days, you’re fine.’
“I think Laurent could see [it in] me sometimes,” Biles continues. “He would be like, ‘Go do double-doubles.’ And I’d be like, ‘Can we do those tomorrow?’ And… I guess I did think I would get lost on some days if I wasn’t absolutely concentrating, but I think it came down to fatigue. I knew if I was a little bit tired that I wouldn’t concentrate fully. I’d be like, ‘Can we please do those tomorrow?’ so that I would be in better shape mentally to do them and to do them successfully so we’re making the right stepping stones towards completely erasing the twisties.
“That was hard,” she concludes. “But communicating with [Laurent] was easy.”
That kind of honest, ongoing willingness to make adjustments – and her communication with the Landis, with herself – were the backbone of Biles’ rebuilt trust in her body and mind. The fear of a return of the twisties was never fully banished, but it didn’t dominate either.
“I thought about that every single day, but not in a negative way. It was in a more positive way,” the seven-time Olympic champion says, “that I’ve put the work in and that this will not happen again.
“There was always a part of me that thought what if?” she continues. “But that was obviously my anxiety talking.”