by Simone Biles
I heard what Martha was telling me loud and clear. And I knew what Aimee had said about poor preparation was true too. And so, when I went back into the gym, it was their voices that pushed me to work harder. I wanted to be better and stronger and more consistent for them, and for my teammates, my parents, and myself too. But I couldn’t forget what the coach behind the curtain had said about me being fat.
My parents didn’t appreciate the other coach’s comments about my weight any more than Aimee did, but they encouraged me not to let it bother me too much. Aimee also suggested that it wasn’t my weight the coach had been criticizing, but my lines. It was true I was short and muscular, which meant that, unlike long, lean gymnasts, I had to pay extra attention to my extensions and body shape to achieve the most graceful lines. If that was what the coach had been getting at, he sure could have chosen better words. I tried to move on.
In the end, two really good things came out of my terrible performance at the 2013 Secret Classic: I had a one-on-one coaching session with Martha at the ranch, and my parents arranged for me to meet regularly with a sports psychologist.
I’ll tell you about the coaching session with Martha first. Actually, I was terrified when I heard that she wanted me to attend a private camp at the ranch. This wasn’t typical at all, but since I lived just an hour away from Huntsville, Martha decided that it might be a good idea. She wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t fall apart ever again like I’d done at Classics. She knows that once you have a meet like that, you can start to doubt yourself. She’d told Aimee, “We all know this girl has got the power; she just needs to be more disciplined.”
So there we were—Martha, Aimee, and me—in the training center at the ranch. First, Martha asked how my ankle was doing. She knew that the week before, I’d seen a doctor who’d treated me to ease the pain and promote healing. “It feels okay,” I told Martha now. “It’s not hurting at all.”
Then, after I’d warmed up with some running and conditioning, Martha asked to me to perform each of my events. Both coaches were completely expressionless as they watched me do my routines—vault, bars, beam, and floor exercise, in the Olympic order—but afterward, Martha came over and held my face in both hands. “Good job, Simone,” she said. “Now you just go out and do that at the P&G National Championship in August.”
“Thank you, Martha,” I said.
But Martha had a lot more she wanted to tell me. She wanted me to understand that my performance at Classics was just “something that happened,” and the worst thing I could do was to let it mess with my head. “I know you can do better, Simone, because I’ve seen you do it,” she said. “You went to Italy and Germany with us earlier this year and you did the American Cup, and you did so well at all those competitions. So don’t be too hard on yourself. But you do need to own up to your talent a little bit more. Yes, you are very good, and so there will be expectations on you. But that is not for you to worry about, because once you’re out there on the floor, it’s just you and your gymnastics. Nothing else matters.”
I was hugely relieved that Martha was being so understanding. Afterward, Aimee would refer to that meeting at the Karolyi Ranch as my “come-to-Jesus moment,” because that’s when I really started to turn my bratty behavior around.
My other saving grace in the weeks leading up to the P&G Championship meet on August 17 in Hartford, Connecticut, was my sports psychologist, Robert Andrews. Mr. Andrews is a tall, older man with a direct approach. I’d met with him a couple times before, and had grown to trust him. Now, after messing up in Chicago, I sat in his office and tried to explain how much pressure I’d been feeling.
“Okay, Simone, I hear all that, but let me ask you something else: What do you love to do?”
I didn’t even have to think about it.
“I love to have fun,” I said.
“And were you having fun at the Secret Classic?”
“No,” I responded.
“Why was that?”
“Because I was worrying about what everyone else was thinking about me, and I was trying to live up to everyone’s expectations.”
He said, “You never did that before, so you don’t have to do that now. Don’t change what has always worked for you, which is to go out there and just have fun.”
That was my breakthrough, the final piece of the puzzle, a moment of clarity that allowed me to go out on the floor three weeks later and relish every moment at the P&G National Championships. And I won! I became the US National All-Around Champion for 2013, taking not only individual gold but also winning silver in all four events. At the end of the meet, I was named to the US national senior team, and a few weeks later, at the qualifying camp in Huntsville, Texas, I was selected for the US World Championship team. I would be representing my country in Belgium that fall alongside Brenna Dowell, McKayla Maroney, and Kyla Ross, with Elizabeth Price as the noncompeting alternate.
I sometimes wonder if any of these amazing things would have happened if I hadn’t crashed at the 2013 Secret Classic. My shaky performance in Chicago had shown me that I needed a serious turnaround in my gymnastics, and I was grateful to everyone who’d encouraged me to face my mistakes and focus on the positive. By helping me make peace with the need to work harder and accept responsibility for the talent God had given me, they’d made it possible for me to fall back in love with flying—and to once and for all end my bratty period.
That summer, there was a new girl at Nationals Camp. Her name was Maggie Nichols, and she was from a town called Little Canada, Minnesota. She’d been named to the US senior team that year, but this was my first time at the ranch with her. She was tall and pretty with strong shoulders and well-defined muscles, and she always killed it on her routines. But she hardly ever talked to anyone at camp, and she spent most breaks alone in her room. Seeing her was like looking through a time machine at myself when I was the newbie at camp. I’d been so intimidated by all the sleek, confident girls who’d been going to the Karolyi Ranch together for years that I could barely find my voice. I know that’s hard to imagine, since I’m usually super friendly and love to talk and laugh. But it’s true: I was once as tongue-tied as Maggie Nichols—until Kyla Ross and Katelyn Ohashi had reached out to me and brought me into the gang.
One day on break, I walked over to Maggie, who was sitting by herself in the cafeteria. “Hey, Maggie, you can come hang out with us in our room when you’re done eating,” I said.
I saw her face light up and she said, “Okay.”
“We’ll wait for you,” I told her.
But Maggie never showed up. I figured she was as nervous around the rest of the girls as I’d once been, so I went to her cabin and dragged her out of her room. “Come on, Maggie, you’re hanging out with us,” I insisted. And she did.
Maggie ended up being another saving grace for me that summer. As I helped bring her into the group at Nationals Camp, for the first time I felt as if I truly belonged there myself. I had traveled and competed with all the girls there, and in the pressure-filled environment of training drills and world-class meets, we’d gotten to know each other really well. We’d also shared hilarious moments behind the scenes, trying on each other’s makeup, giggling about boys, and coming up with spur-of-the-moment games on long, boring afternoons.
Some people have said the enduring relationships that have grown out of these shared experiences are a part of the secret of Team USA’s success: We’re all so bonded as a group that in competition, we root hard for one another. We have each other’s back. Now, as I looked ahead to my first World Championship in Antwerp, Belgium, on September 30, 2013, it gave me confidence just knowing that when I stepped onto the mat on the other side of the world, I’d have my family in the stands and true friends on the sidelines, cheering me on.
CHAPTER 15
Just Like Practice
“Stand up and let the world hear your roar; now spread your wings and begin to soar.”
—MYA WAECHTLER, WRITER
I wanted to pierce my belly button. On family vacations in Belize, I’d seen girls on the beach with belly rings, and I thought they looked so cool. I imagined myself in crop tops around town, or in a bikini by the pool, my belly ring catching the sunlight.
It all started when I was eight. Mom had given Adria and me a toy makeup kit with these colorful fake stick-on jewels called bindis. You were supposed to put them on your forehead or at the corners of your eyes, but Adria and I always stuck them on our belly buttons. No surprise, my dad thought this was an outrageous fashion choice. “Why would anyone want a belly piercing?” he asked, genuinely appalled. So I focused all my persuasive powers on my mom. She’d just laugh and say, “Well, I have to think about that.”
But one day, just before I turned sixteen, she said, “All right, Simone, if you win Worlds this year, you can get your belly pierced.”
This was right at the beginning of my senior season. I hadn’t even been assigned to the American Cup yet. At the time, I was only dreaming about being chosen for the Worlds team—maybe as a specialist or even as a noncompeting alternate. It was beyond anyone’s wildest imagination to think I could win the biggest international meet of the season, especially my first time, so Mom felt safe shaking on our deal. Dad had no idea we’d made this agreement, and my mom didn’t even bother to tell him. She thought it was all a big joke, and she forgot about it almost as soon as we shook hands.
I wasn’t thinking about our deal either when I got selected for the Worlds team. Being chosen to compete had been a jaw-dropping moment for me. But now I was riding a wave of excitement and fear. I’d be one of five girls carrying the banner for my country. Could I handle the pressure? I knew this was my test. I’d have to find a way to manage everyone’s expectations in order to keep them from making me feel overwhelmed. I needed to learn to how to carry those expectations lightly—like a turtle carries its shell.
This inspiration came to me as I picked out six turtles from my figurine collection to bring with me to Worlds. I’d been taking some of my favorite turtles to gymnastics meets for years, and everywhere I traveled I’d shop for a new turtle figurine to add to my collection. For Worlds, I made sure to pack my lucky turtle, the one with a little red ladybug on its back. The good thing was, I’d be mostly unknown at Worlds. As Martha had told me when she chose me for the team, “Simone, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain at this Worlds. Just take it day by day, and set a name for yourself.”
On the first day of competition at the six-day meet, I got an idea. I decided I’d look for Martha on the sidelines before each event, because I knew that if I had her in my line of sight, I wouldn’t mess up. Round after round, this strategy seemed to be working for me. I had no clue what our team’s scores were, because the other girls and I were just doing our thing, keeping it rolling. After each event, I’d think, Okay. Cool. Made it. What’s next? Let’s go. As we hit one routine after another on that huge stage, our confidence grew. I felt such pride and happiness every time one of my teammates saluted the judges and the audience cheered. To know that I was a part of that was incredible.
I still had moments when my nerves got to me, but whenever I’d start to get anxious, Kyla Ross would remind me, “Simone, just do what you do in practice.” And before I went out for each event, she’d high-five me and say, “Just like practice, Simone!” I’d say the same thing to her when it was her turn to go up. “Just like practice” became our catchphrase.
As I walked onto the mat to do my floor exercise, I held on to that phrase like it was a lifeline, because I was about to perform a difficult move I’d come up with in practice—a double flip in the layout position with a half twist out. The way it happened was, I’d landed short on a double layout full out earlier that year during training, and I’d strained my calf muscle on the backward landing. Aimee didn’t want me to risk a more severe injury, so she suggested I do the double layout—body straight with legs together and fully extended as I flipped twice in the air—then add a half twist at the end. That extra half twist meant I’d have to master a very tricky blind forward landing, but it would put less stress on my calves.
I thought the new combination sounded incredibly cool, so I started playing around with it until I was landing the skill 95 percent of the time. At the next Nationals Camp, I demonstrated the move for Martha and she thought it looked really good, so we went ahead and added it to the second tumbling pass of my floor routine. I’d already performed the combination at national meets that year, but doing it at Worlds was different. That’s because when a completely new skill is executed successfully at a season-ending championship like Worlds or the Olympics, the move will forever after be known by the name of the gymnast who first performed it. Talk about high stakes!
I’ll cut to the chase: I nailed the move, which is how it came to be known as the Biles. How awesome is that! (The only problem is, when I see another gymnast perform the move now, I pray they don’t get hurt. I know it’s not logical, but because the move is named after me, I’d feel as if it was my fault.)
At the end of the all-around finals, when I saw on the scoreboard that I’d won the gold—that I was the 2013 Artistic Gymnastics World Champion—I couldn’t take it in. None of it seemed real. People ask me now, “What was going through your head as you went up to the podium?” and all I can remember thinking is, Did this just happen?
Up in the audience, my mom and dad were hugging each other and crying, and I bet they were asking themselves the very same thing!
For the medal ceremony, I lined up with the top eight finishers to march into the arena. One by one, the announcer called us to the stage, starting with number eight and finishing with the top three on the podiums. Kyla Ross had won individual silver (go, Kyla!), and Aliya Mustafina of Russia had won bronze. As the gold medalist, I was the last to go up. Aimee had explained I was to go to each of the top finishers and shake hands to congratulate them before mounting the first-place podium. When I got to Kyla, instead of shaking her hand I hugged her tight, because I really felt as if she was a huge part of my win. From the American Cup onward, she’d been there for me, sharing her experience and just generally showing me what to do.
The medal ceremony was no different. I knew Kyla was used to being on the podium, and I kept watching her so I’d know which hand to take the flowers with, when to hold them up, when to wave, which way to turn for the national anthem, where to go and how to pose for the photographers. During that whole time, I don’t think there was anything else going through my head. I was just copying Kyla, following her lead.
And of course, I couldn’t really relax yet, because we still had to compete in the apparatus finals over the next two days. In the end, I won four medals at Worlds—two gold for all-around and floor, silver for vault, and bronze for balance beam. Team USA’s men and women won twelve medals overall, making 2013 a very good year for our country.
My first morning back in the States, I woke up to a tweet storm. It seemed that the Italian gymnast Carlotta Ferlito had made an unfortunate comment about race to her teammate, Vanessa Ferrari, who had taken sixth in the all-around.
Carlotta’s frustration apparently boiled over two days later when I won bronze on beam—ahead of Vanessa at fourth and Carlotta at fifth—and gold on floor, again edging out Vanessa, who took silver. In a video interview that afternoon, Carlotta told a reporter that she’d said to Vanessa, “Next time we should also paint our skin black so then we can win too.” I can only guess she was referring to Gabby Douglas becoming the first black woman gymnast to win Olympic gold in the all-around, and to me becoming the first black woman gymnast to win World’s just one year later. Whatever she meant, her comment sparked instant pandemonium in the gymnastics community.
But I didn’t know about any of this until I woke up and checked my Twitter feed that morning. Everybody was messaging me about Carlotta’s comment, asking me what I thought, and being outraged for me. I went to find my mom, who was in her home office, working.
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br /> “What in the world are all these people talking about?” I asked her. Together, we googled around and figured out what the whole dustup was about.
“Do not get roped into this,” Mom cautioned me as we scrolled through story after story about what Carlotta had said. “Do not let those comments ruin this moment for you, Simone. Just be proud of your performance and the outcome. People will say whatever they want to say, but for you to get into this racism stuff is pointless.” She continued: “Of course we know you’re black, but that’s not the reason you’re out there competing. You went to Worlds to represent your country. You’re out there simply to do the best you possibly can. So my advice to you is don’t even address these comments. If anyone asks you about them, just say you’d rather not respond.”
The truth is, I wasn’t really bothered by what Carlotta had said. I figured she was just disappointed in the outcome of the meet, and sometimes, when you’re not in a good place, you can say the exact wrong thing. So even though the media was in an uproar over her comments, I was totally on the same page as my mom. But what we didn’t yet know was that a reporter had already reached my dad on the phone. The next day, comments he made to the press were quoted everywhere.
“The racial comment was really out of line,” he’d said, adding, “Normally it’s not in Simone’s favor being black, at least not in the world that I live in.” The reporter pressed him for a statement on how I was dealing with the controversy. “Simone has moved on,” my dad told them. “She’s not fazed by it.”
I wish I could say that was the end of it, but it would be a few more days before the whole thing blew over. When I went back to training at Bannon’s at the end of that week, the girls in the gym were super excited that one of their own had won Worlds. I was in the middle of that happy reunion when a whole series of tweets from Carlotta began coming through. There were about twelve in all.