Next up for Simone Biles: Will she return for 2024 Olympics in Paris?
TOKYO — This might be the last we’ve seen of Simone Biles.
Or, maybe not.
Biles had long said the Tokyo Olympics would be her last and, after the week she had, no one will blame her if her bronze-medal-winning balance beam routine was the last competitive one she does. The four-time Olympic champion withdrew from the team final after one event, then skipped the all-around and the first three event finals because rising anxiety has manifested itself in “the twisties.”
The condition causes gymnasts to lose their sense of air awareness, posing a danger to their physical safety.
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"I trained my whole life, I was physically ready, I was fine. And then this happens. "It was something that was so out of my control," Biles said Tuesday night after winning her seventh Olympic medal, which tied Shannon Miller for the most by a U.S. woman.
"But the outcome I had, at the end of the day, my mental and physical health is better than any medal."
Prior to Tokyo, Biles had left the door open to coming back for the 2024 Games in Paris. Her coaches, Cecile and Laurent Landi, are French, and Cecile Landi represented France at the 1996 Olympics.
“So it'd be neat to end it there and hang it up, but we just never know,” Biles told Paste BN Sports in April. “We'll have to see.”
Asked about it Tuesday night, Biles said she couldn't even contemplate another Olympics right now.
"I think I’m still trying to process this Olympics," Biles said. "Paris is not in my mind-frame because I think there are so many things I have to work on for myself first."
Biles will for sure take the next several months off. She is the headliner of the Gold Over America Tour, which begins in late September and runs through early November, and has said she wants to go on vacation after that.
At 24, she might decide she's had enough of the rigors and sacrifices of elite-level training, and start exploring what she wants to do in the next phase of her life.
"Right now she’s focused on the tour. After that, we’ll see. One step at a time," Cecile Landi said. "Obviously, we saw it took a lot on her this week and to come back. I just don’t want to put words in her mouth. If she wants to be back, we’ll be here for her."
But Biles also might decide she wants to end her career, certainly her Olympic career, with a better experience than what she had in Tokyo. If so, the shortened window would make it easier.
The Paris Games are only three years away and, with the break Biles will take now, she might only have to train for about 18 months.
If Biles does come back, however, don’t expect to see her doing the all-around.
“I think," she said in April, "I've kind of put it all out there.”