Simone Biles Has Never Looked This Good Before

The best to have ever done it isn’t just back. She appears changed.

Simone Biles entered the floor exercise mat wearing an entrancing Barbie-pink leotard at the May Core Hydration Classic, which is regarded as the first meet of the 2024 Olympic gymnastics selection season. However, the fans at Hartford’s XL Centre went completely insane before she could even finish her famous opening tumbling pass, the Biles II, a triple-twisting double back tuck. This was the reaction to the first notes of the brand-new floor music for the gymnastics GOAT: “Ready for It?” by Taylor Swift

The first scene of Reputation gave the gymnastics/Swiftie fandom the crossover they didn’t realise they needed: Swift’s song serves as an underappreciated retaliation against her well-known critics, and this meeting furthered Biles’ magnificent recovery following her labelling as a “quitter” by a group of the tiniest men in history. (At the moment, Biles and Swift both have well-known connections with NFL players. Is this a sign that they’re great friends?

However, the confident, bold tune also made a fitting background for Biles’s 2024 performances so far. In a sport where tenths are typically used to decide results, Biles’ dominant six-point victory margin at the two-day U.S. Championships on June 2 was just one of these incredibly confident performances.

This implies that Biles—who only had one fall on the vault on Night 2—could have won her incredible eighth national gold with six more falls. The margin indicated that the stratospheric 2021-level difficulty of the GOAT has returned: Among her incredible feats were the triple-double on the floor noted earlier, the Yurchenko double pike (also known as the Biles II) on the vault, and the double-double dismount off bars. However, there is another aspect about her that is unique. Her attitude is really spot on. In contrast to three years ago, Biles appears emotionally and mentally strong, but she also appears, inexplicably, lighter. She is known for being small but mighty. It appears as though she is no longer bearing the weight of the earth.

I learned from covering the Tokyo Games to never predict the Olympic medal podium again, but one thing I will shout for all it’s worth: the Simone Biles unbothered period has arrived just in time for an Olympics in her coaches’ home country.

In certain aspects, Biles’ gymnastics in 2021 were the best of her career. After the Rio Olympics in 2016, she deservedly took a break. She had completed multiple upgrades, or even harder skills, seemingly just for fun since returning to the gym in 2018—a year in which, despite multiple falls and a genuine kidney stone, she won the World Championships by more than a point. The masters of gymnastics purposely discounted some of her enhanced skills, adding to the already insane difficulty of her Rio routines. As the world’s greatest without a doubt, she set off for Tokyo.

And yet, it was clear that Biles was not well despite a pandemic and significant domestic instability. She was, in actuality, just one component of a severely disorganised USA Gymnastics programme. Everyone’s itinerary was disrupted by the one-year postponing of the Olympics. (The amount of painstakingly organised, demanding training required to “peak” at an Olympics is inconceivable to most mortals.) Additionally, the U.S. women’s programme was still in shock from the heartbreaking scandals that surfaced following Rio, which brought Olympic gymnasts like Simone Biles back into the public eye—not for their gymnastic prowess, but rather for an unprecedented level of bravery that put a monstrous predator in jail. The financially strapped USA Gymnastics underwent a precipitous reorganisation that produced an Olympic team that, in spite of an exceptionally deep competition, managed to seem cohesive as though it was totally dependent on Biles’ presumed supremacy.

Back then, her face was clearly showing off all that weight. Her gymnastics, which was magnificent as always but had a jangle-nerved, uncontrollable edge that surfaced during the trials and intensified in Tokyo even before the terrifying “twisties” incident that occurred literally midair on live international television, further demonstrated this. This is not just retrospective analysis; I would date the exact moment I realised something was seriously wrong with Biles to her floor performance during the Games’ qualifying round, when, in a tumbling move, she bounced not just out of bounds (as her strength frequently leads her to do), but halfway into the stands. She had demonstrated extraordinary control over her extraordinary skills for years despite her previous out-of-bounds tumbles; otherwise, she wouldn’t be the best to ever do it. This was not how things usually were.

For her own safety (and to make sure the United States finished on the medal stand, which it could not have with multiple falls), Biles wisely withdrew from all subsequent events save one during the Olympics after the twisties incident on vault confirmed to the rest of the world what many of us already suspected. She also competed in the twist-free beam final, where she won a bronze, which she claims to be her favourite medal to date. Then, it was a relief for those of us who don’t enjoy watching people break their necks on live TV when Biles took another pause, which many of us thought would be permanent, to concentrate on her health and her family. For someone who just looked downright miserable, it was also an absolute must that she play the sport that she dominated.

Her suffering didn’t seem to be the typical tiredness that comes with stardom and all of its perks—the kind that, for example, Nikola Jokic has articulated. Biles did not appear to discuss gymnastics on her social media accounts in the year before the Tokyo Games, unless it was necessary for budgetary reasons. (Her main gymnastics posts were almost exclusively sponsored ones.) This young lady then expressed that she felt overwhelmed by the demands of the world, in addition to her personal desire for perfection. She deserved to release herself from her death-grip on gymnastics when she went into (literal) exile following the Olympics.

But in some way, she’s back and looks more than rejuvenated—even though the world does not deserve another Simone Biles phase. She appears to be both driven to achieve the greatest levels of brilliance she is capable of reaching and content with that goal for its own sake in this cycle. After three hundred training sessions, Biles’s tremendous dedication to her mental well-being is evident. At the previously unimaginable gymnast age of 27, Biles is at her greatest best in the mental game in 2024.

People need to understand that Simone Biles owes us nothing, even if we don’t talk bad about her. It is evident that she is prepared for whatever occurs in these Games because she has already gone through her nightmares three years ago.

Yes, the odds favour the United States team winning and Biles winning gold in the all-around and at least two other events. Even if she stumbles, she will probably win an Olympic vault gold as long as she keeps throwing the double pike. The Olympics are typically unexpected, so we can be caught off guard by one or more things. However, her face tells you that she has already achieved the greatest of her achievements. Whatever transpires in Paris, Simone Biles remains enchanted.