Star gymnast Simone Biles returns to competition for the first time since the Olympics
Simone Biles is back.
The gymnastics superstar plans to return to competition in early August at the US Classic outside Chicago, her first event since the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
USA Gymnastics announced Wednesday that Biles, a seven-time Olympic medalist and 2016 Olympic champion, will be part of the women’s field for the one-day event taking place Aug. 5 at the NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates.
Biles has taken most of the past two years off following her eventful stint in Japan, where her decision to withdraw from multiple events to focus on her mental health shifted the focus from the competitions themselves to overall well-being of the athletes.
She served as a cheerleader as her U.S. teammates won the team silver, then made the all-around, vault, and floor exercise finals for which she qualified, while facing what is known as “the twisties”—a gymnastics term for when an athlete loses their spatial awareness in the air.
LOOK | Biles’ Olympic decision on top sports moments of 2021:
Ian Hanomansing looks back at the triumphs, challenges and controversies of the sports world in 2021 with CBC’s Devin Heroux and Sportsnet’s Tara Slone and Donnovan Bennett.
Biles returned for the balance beam final, where she won a bronze medal that tied Shannon Miller’s record for most Olympic medals by an American gymnast. She alluded to the Paris Olympics in 2024, but only after a long hiatus.
The past two years have been something of a whirlwind. She headlined her post-Olympic tour in the fall of 2021 and this spring married NFL player Jonathan Owens — now a defensive back for the Green Bay Packers.
The US Classic is one of the big events on USA Gymnastics’ annual calendar and typically serves as a sort of warm-up for the National Championships, which take place in San Jose at the end of August this year.
Biles used the Classic as her comeback competition in 2018 after a two-year hiatus following her record medals in Rio de Janeiro. It took her a whopping two hours to prove she remained the gold standard in her sport, paving the way for another spectacular run that included two more world all-around championships in 2018 and 2019 and three more national titles.
Things could be different this time, in more ways than one.
Quieter approach to Paris
Biles was in the spotlight during her run-up to Tokyo and in many ways became the face of the American Olympic movement. She seems to be taking a more subdued approach with the Paris Games a year from now. She’s kept her various social media channels almost completely gym-free, instead using them to highlight snippets from her personal life.
Sunisa Lee, who won gold in the all-around final in Tokyo, will also be attending the US Classic after competing for two years at Auburn, where she helped spark a huge upsurge in interest in collegiate gymnastics.
Lee missed the second half of her sophomore year with the Tigers as she struggled with health issues, but looks forward to a return to the Olympics, not to defend her all-around title, but to take another shot at gold on uneven bars, her signature event. She placed third on bars in Tokyo, in no small part because of the attention she received after becoming the fifth American woman in a row to win the Olympic title.
