TOKYO — Simone Biles has won a bronze medal in the Tokyo Olympics in the balance beam final.
The athlete says she was surprised about winning a podium spot.
“I wasn’t expecting to medal,” Biles said per The New York Times. “To have one more opportunity to be at the Olympics meant the world to me.”
Last week, Biles withdrew from the team competition with a case of the “twisties.”
“After further consultation with medical staff, Simone Biles has decided to withdraw from the event finals for vault and the uneven bars,” USA Gymnastics said in a statement last week. “She will continue to be evaluated daily to determine whether to compete in the finals for floor exercise and balance beam.”
She now owns seven Olympic medals — tying her with Shannon Miller for the most by a U.S. gymnast.
Tokyo 2020 was the first Olympics since 2016 when she was still under the care of Dr. Larry Nassar. Biles was one of the dozens of women who stepped forward to reveal the gymnastics physician had sexually abused them.
In an interview for Vogue‘s August 2020 issue, Biles said, “It didn’t feel like real life.”
She said things got worse when she moved out of her parents’ house.
“I was very depressed,” Biles said. “At one point I slept so much because, for me, it was the closest thing to death without harming myself. It was an escape from all of my thoughts, from the world, from what I was dealing with. It was a really dark time.”
She shared that she waited to come forward because she did not know whether what she had experienced was actually abuse.
“I felt like I wasn’t abused, because it wasn’t to the same extent as the other girls,” Biles said.
Simone Biles is brave. And once again, proven why she is the G.O.A.T.
