PARIS — Simone Biles isn’t going to be a “gold-medal token” for the U.S. women’s gymnastics team at these Olympics.
Biles has been assured she won’t have to do all four events in the women’s gymnastics team final if she doesn’t feel it’s best for her or for the Americans, Chellsie Memmel, the technical lead for the U.S. women, said Tuesday.
“If that’s what she needs to continue to be at her best for the team and for herself, that’s what we’re going to do because there are still four other members on our team,” Memmel said. “Whether she takes it or not, it’s going to be completely up to her.”
Although there is a tentative U.S. lineup, no final decisions will be made until after podium training Thursday. Qualifying is Sunday and the team final is next Tuesday.
Unlike in qualifying, when teams can drop their lowest score, only three gymnasts compete on each event in team finals and all three scores count. Biles is the best gymnast in history and doesn’t really have a bad event, but asking her to do all four with little margin of error puts a lot of pressure on her.
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Biles said last year that someone from USA Gymnastics had told her at the Tokyo Olympics that she was the team’s “gold-medal token.” That amplified anxiety she was already feeling from the massive expectations on her and the isolation of the severe COVID restrictions, and she wound up withdrawing one event into the team final in Tokyo with a case of “the twisties,” which caused her to lose her sense of where she was in the air.
Unwilling to risk her physical safety, Biles withdrew from four individual event finals before returning for the balance beam final, where she won a bronze medal with a reworked routine that didn’t require her to twist.
It took Biles months to get over the twisties and to be able to trust her gymnastics again. Even though she’s in a much better place now, thanks to weekly therapy sessions, she acknowledged having fears before the team final at last year’s world championships, the first team final she’d competed in since Tokyo.
Memmel said Biles and coach Cecile Landi had asked about not doing all four events at worlds, too, and she gave them a similar answer then. Biles did wind up doing all four events, leading the U.S. women to the gold medal.
“For her, knowing that that is a possibility, I think that helps,” Memmel said.
Biles has declined to say who made the crass “token” comment. But leadership of the program has been overhauled since Tokyo, with Memmel and fellow Beijing Olympian Alicia Sacramone Quinn taking over in 2022.
“I think she’s in a really good place. She’s excited about gymnastics, she’s enjoying it and I think she sees this is as redemption for her,” Memmel said. “And I think she’s going to go out and do an amazing job. And we’re going to support her.”