Spring, Texas – Simone Biles isn’t “cured.” Let’s start there. A cure indicates finality. The ultimate and final victory. If the gymnastics superstar had learned anything in the three years since those odd, unsure days in Tokyo when she prioritized her mental health and personal safety over her chase of additional Olympic gold, it is that the battle to defend oneself never truly ends. Only partially won.

It’s a lesson she learned in front of the entire world in Japan when Biles arrived as the face of the Summer Games only to withdraw from many competitions, including the team final because her body just stopped doing what her brain told it to do.

At that moment, Biles blamed “the twisties.” On the surface, she was correct. However, they emerged from something deeper and more difficult to define.

“She can’t even explain it (and) the doctors she sees probably can’t either,” said Laurent Landi, who has been coaching Biles with his wife Cecile since 2017. “It was a traumatic event that occurred at a horrible moment for her, and she was unable to deal with it. It’s as simple as this. She couldn’t function. “She couldn’t be a gymnast at the time.”

She can now, but the journey to this point — Biles will compete for the first time in 2024 at this weekend’s U.S. Classic — has been rough. It has taken a new perspective, at times a literal mother’s touch, and ongoing attention to work on herself, which she now realizes has no expiration date.

Biles tried to take all of the extra attention before Tokyo in stride. She portrayed a sense of normalcy. It was only a facade. Her pent-up emotions and aggressions eventually drove her to “crack.”

Biles was in therapy before Tokyo but had interrupted treatment before traveling abroad. With millions watching, she went off the floor at the Ariake Gymnastics Center after a misplaced vault in the women’s team final and contacted her family, who had stayed from home in Texas because of COVID-19 restrictions imposed for the games.

Simone Biles Is Stepping Into The Olympic Spotlight Again. She Is Better Prepared For The Pressure

Nellie Biles answered the phone and heard her daughter exclaim through tears, “Mom, I really cannot do this.” “I’m lost; I can’t do this.”

So she didn’t. Biles withdrew from a few finals before returning to win bronze on the balance beam, a medal she considers one of the most meaningful of her career. As terrible and frightening as the experience was, it was necessary because it taught Biles that mental health is something she cannot ignore.

“I couldn’t run away from it, you know,” Biles told The Associated Press. “I just acknowledged it and stated, ‘Hey, this is what I’m going through. This is the assistance that I am going to receive.”

Help has driven Biles back to the top of her sport, with another Olympics on the horizon. Help manifests itself in various ways and often from unexpected locations

Biles is confident she is in a better place this time, thanks partly to weekly Thursday meetings with her therapist, which have become an immovable part of her schedule.

Biles went into a practically empty arena last fall in Antwerp, Belgium, for podium training before the world championships, her first team competition since Tokyo. Something about the scene triggered, as Nellie Biles describes it, “a PTSD moment.” Biles dashed off the floor to gather herself after being triggered by an unexpected event.

There were more tears. Increased anxiety. More calls. More reassurance.

“She almost didn’t go back out there,” Nellie Biles explained.

After being “a little bit hesitant,” Biles pushed through, thanks in part to the decision to meet with her therapist, which she rarely did close to competitions before commencing practice for the U.S. Classic in Chicago last summer

The US women were given the afternoon off, and some went to a chocolate factory. Biles opted to remain behind and FaceTime her therapist instead.

“I know how important it is for me to stay present, mindful and not be too anxious,” she stated. “So yes, we will keep that up.”

There were other home comforts in Belgium. Specifically, her family.

Every day, Nellie Biles went to Simone’s hotel room and braided her daughter’s hair for 30-45 minutes, which was a first.

“My daughter is (27) and I know (she) can braid her hair,” Nellie Biles remarked. “But it’s just that touch and closeness. It is that connectedness. It was just what she needed, and it worked.

The meet concluded in the same way that many others had during Biles’ decade-long reign at the top: with a fistful of medals packed in her suitcase for the return flight home, setting the stage for a potentially momentous Olympic year.

Before Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and Tokyo in 2021, the idea of Olympic history threatened to—and occasionally did—overtake her.

Simone Biles Is Stepping Into The Olympic Spotlight Again. She Is Better Prepared For The Pressure

It does not anymore. Life has, thankfully, gotten in the way.

One year ago, Biles married Jonathan Owens, the current Chicago Bears safety. The two are constructing a home in the Houston suburbs that will be completed (hopefully) in late summer or early fall

In some ways, she resembles many other 20-something brides in Biles’ orbit. For example, former Olympic teammate MyKayla Skinner had a daughter last September. A part of Biles thinks, “That’s what I should be doing.”

Instead, she’s “still flipping out here,” still making her way to the Biles family’s gym, the World Champions Centre, and practicing with other Olympic hopefuls, many of whom are nearly a decade younger and grew up idolizing her.

Why does she keep putting herself through this? Well, that’s the most important issue of all.

“I think everything I’ve been through, I want to push the limits,” she stated. “I want to see how far I can get. I want to see what I’m still capable of so that when I retire from this sport, I can be fully satisfied with my career and say I gave it my best.”

She is well aware of what may happen this summer that the millions captivated by what happened in Tokyo — from the crowds who cheered her on to the social media haters who labeled her a quitter or worse — would tune in to see if she cracks again.

Those closest to Biles believe she is better prepared for whatever may arise

“She knows something like (Tokyo) can happen because it did happen,” Landi stated. “So it’s just like, ‘OK, I’m going to be careful, I’m going to follow the same protocol every time and then I’m going to avoid (the pitfalls)’ and that’s all you can do.”

Is it the last time? She will not say. That is too far ahead. She does not frequently use the phrases “Paris” or “Olympics” in her chats. This may appear to be purposeful, but it is not. It’s just something she does.

“It’s not like I think that ‘Olympics’ is a plague and I’m trying to avoid it or trying not to say it,” she stated. “I just think there are other things I have to get to before that.”

The U.S. Classic, which takes place this weekend in Connecticut, will feature 2020 Olympic champion Sunisa Lee and 2012 Olympic champion Gabby Douglas. The United States Championships are later this month, and the Olympic Trials start in late June.

Simone Biles Is Stepping Into The Olympic Spotlight Again. She Is Better Prepared For The Pressure

One turn, routine, rotation, and encounter at a time. With all of her tools, including her therapist, at the ready.

“I feel very confident with where I’m at mentally and physically, that (Tokyo) is not going to happen again just because we have put in the work,” she stated.

There is also something greater at risk here: a message sent by Biles to others. It’s OK to not be OK. It is acceptable to make yourself vulnerable and to be open and truthful about the process, no matter how messy it becomes.

She says she’s lost track of how many people have told her, “Because of you, I’m getting the proper help that I deserve.”

It can be jarring in certain ways. She never intended to become the face of this movement, but it happened anyway.

If Biles retreats to Tokyo rather than face her troubles full on, those folks may lack the guts to ask for something they desperately need. That’s a blessing from the recent Olympics that far transcends any medal.

“As unfortunate as it (was) … it’s exciting because I know that by speaking out it’s helping other people,” Biles stated. “And that’s what I’ve always wanted to do, inside this sport and outside this sport.”

So, she’ll salute the judges on Saturday and return to the spotlight.

No, she has not been cured. She is better, though, even if she is still a work in progress, as are so many others who found the strength to say “me too” after witnessing the biggest star in the American Olympic movement open up about her troubles with so much at risk

This is the true lesson of Tokyo. It was vital, no matter how difficult it felt at the time.

“It’s good that it happened,” Biles stated. “Because I don’t think I would have got the proper help that I need (without it).”

SOURCE – (AP)