It took 6.81 seconds to erase a conversation stretching back three years and three days.
On July 27, 2021, Simone Biles stood at the end of the vault runway, sprinted 25 meters, downgraded her planned vault, landed awkwardly and eventually walked off the competition floor. She would not finish the team final at the Tokyo Games, the team would settle for silver and Biles would spend the time between Olympic cycles dogged by doubters, criticisms and questions.
This was not a do-over; a do-over would imply Biles wanted to erase what happened to her. And she needed it, even as painful as it was to live it, in order to go forward – as an athlete, as a woman. To become the gymnast she is now, Biles had to confront her past and prioritize her mental health.
If not a do-over, this was at least a second chance. Biles returned to the exact place it all went off-kilter the last time, where the twisties left the world’s greatest gymnast so lost she told her coaches, “I don’t trust myself,’’ before opting to withdraw. This time she started her day with her therapist, a weekly appointment she has kept sacrosanct for years. Biles told her she felt calm and ready, which is exactly how she appeared when she stepped up for her first event.
At the end of a different vault runway in a different city at a different Olympics, Biles vaulted. It was not her hardest vault, her typical Yurchenko double pike “downgraded” to a still incredibly hard Cheng likely in deference to the calf injury she suffered in qualifications on Sunday. The U.S. didn’t need the points, and Biles still has to vault twice more in Paris, in the all-around and the vault event final.
The vault itself didn’t matter; it’s what happened afterward. Biles threw her hands over her head and smiled a megawatt smile. She high-fived her coach, Laurent Landi, high-fived her teammates and beamed, that grin essentially serving as a dagger to every other gymnast in Bercy Arena. As soon as Biles smiled, the competition was effectively over. “After I finished, it was just, phew,’’ Biles said with a smile. “At least there were no flashbacks or anything. As soon as I landed that vault I thought, ‘Oh yeah we’re going to do this.’’
