How Simone Biles was cleared to compete in Tokyo Olympics balance beam final
TOKYO – Once Simone Biles withdrew from Olympic competition and shared the mental health struggles she was facing, getting back took more than just verifying her spot in the lineup.
Biles claimed bronze on the balance beam here in only her second Tokyo Olympics final, completing a series of steps to ensure she was ready to compete safely.
“To be cleared to do beam, which I didn’t think I was going to be, just meant the world to be back out there,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting to walk away with a medal.”
Biles has been struggling with the “twisties” since the team final a week ago, pulling out of that competition after she bailed on one of her routine vaults. Biles was attempting an Amanar when she dropped out of it one twist short and barely got to her feet.
She didn’t finish that competition, and she pulled out of the all-around, vault, uneven bars and floor finals she had qualified for. She was the defending gold medalist on all but bars.
To be able to make it back for this competition, she had two sessions with a sports psychologist here.
“That really helped me stay level-headed and be OK with missing the other finals,” Biles said. “Watching them, being the girls’ biggest cheerleader, wasn’t where I wanted to be coming into this Olympics, especially after qualifying for five (finals). But I physically knew I literally couldn’t do it.”
Biles was also medically evaluated each day, and she had to answer questions from a doctor from the International Gymnastics Federation on Monday night to be cleared to compete.
“The other days just wasn’t cleared to do it,” she said. “To be cleared for beam meant a lot.”
But competing that event took further adjustment on Biles’ part.
Biles said that she has been trying to work through the twisties, which is how gymnasts describe the sudden disconnect between their air awareness and the muscle memory their bodies have built up over time. They cannot tell where they are in the air and how, or even if, they will land.
It’s dangerous for any gymnast, but for Biles – whose gymnastics are the most difficult of anyone in the world – it carries significant risk of injury.
Unlike when she has dealt with this in the past, she was experiencing the twisties on every apparatus. In Instagram videos she posted Friday, and later deleted, she was struggling to land an uneven bars dismount on a soft surface.
That she was able to do beam was only because she altered her routine, specifically simplifying her dismount.
Because she could not twist without losing herself in the air, she replaced her normal dismount with a double pike – or a double somersault in a piked position.
“I’ve been training beam every day. We just last minute decided to switch the dismount, which I probably have not done since I was like 12 years old because I’ve always twisted off and done a full-in since I was probably 13 or 14,” Biles said. “On the beam, that work is easy. I’ve always been able to do, but it’s just coming off we didn’t know what we were going to do or compete in the final.”
That adjustment made this event possible in a way that the others were not. Her vaults require four twists between them. On floor, one pass alone involves a skill with three twists. Those were not doable.
“The only reason why I could do beam was because there was no twisting,” she said, “so thank God for that.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Simone Biles on her Olympic return and balance beam bronze medal
