Simone Biles Rising

Watching Simone Biles soar and spin, one might be tempted to believe that the laws of physics are not universal, that under certain conditions a human being can — not break the laws, but rather step outside them and create a parallel universe, her own personal dimension, in which gravity is optional and time stops.

I can’t think of another sport in which athletes spend so much time off the ground. High-diving comes close, but gymnasts fling themselves into the air from the floor, the vault table, the uneven bars, and the balance beam. Parachutists and parasailers spend more time in the air, but with the aid of equipment to keep them from plummeting to earth. Gymnasts rely on their ability to control their bodies, to know at every moment where each body part is and where that body part needs to be in the next fraction of a second. That awareness requires perfect synchronization of mind and body. Which also explains why I can’t dance.

Look at photographs of Simone Biles in flight — the concentration in her face; her eyes looking at where she’s going, not at where she is; the symmetry of her body during the twists, pikes, rolls, and flips. Even her toes and fingers are pointed.

Biles has five gymnastics moves named for her, the first when she was 16. In the time it takes me to trip and fall flat on my face, Biles can “do a double layout with a half-twist in the second flip” (The Biles [Floor]), or “a half twist onto the vaulting table and a front double full summersault off” (The Biles [Vault]), or “two flips and three twists” (The Biles II [Floor]), or “a dismount from the balance beam that involves two twists and two flips” (The Biles [Beam]), or “a Yurchenko-style vault with two flips in a pike position” (The Biles II [Vault]).

Oh, and as of yesterday, she also has 10 Olympic medals (seven gold, one silver, two bronze), 30 World Championship medals (23 gold, four silver, three bronze), three FIG All-Around World Cup Championships (two gold, one silver), and two Pacific Rim Championships (both gold). All of that since 2013. And that is only a partial list.

The Netflix series, “Simone Biles Rising,” is a deeply moving look at what Biles has endured to become the GOAT. But it is not a hagiography: it is as much about Biles’ personal struggles as it is about the context of mental cruelty, sexual abuse, racism, and misogyny/toxic masculinity within which Biles and other female gymnasts live their lives and careers.

Biles was one of Larry Nassar’s hundreds of sexual assault victims. Nassar, the U.S. women’s national gymnastics team doctor between 1996 and 2014, is now serving a life sentence. Biles joined the U.S. team when she was 15 years old. Like many of the other girls and young women entrusted to his care, she didn’t realize at the time that what he was doing was wrong.

During the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Biles had a mental health crisis. Among gymnasts, it is known as the “twisties,” a feeling of not being in control of one’s body. Considering that gymnasts spend much of their time not on the ground, the twisties can be fatal. Biles described it as being “lost in the air.” “Your mind and your body are at a disconnect. Your body is going to try to do something, and your mind is going to be like, ‘No, you’re not doing this.’”

She withdrew from the Olympics and courageously brought the issue of mental health in sports into the public discourse, where it ran up against the masculinity that dismisses mental health and glorifies pain. JD Vance (he’s the guy running with that other guy) castigated “our sort of therapeutic society” for praising Biles’ “weakest moment.” Piers Morgan chimed in: “Are ‘mental health issues’ now the go-to excuse for any poor performance in elite sport? What a joke.” Right-wingnut Charlie Kirk called Biles a “selfish sociopath.” Comedian Michael Che posted on his Instagram account, “man, I want to make fun of simone biles. I got like 3 mins of simone biles jokes in my head.”

“Suck it up, buttercup.” “Play through the pain.” “Take one for the team.”

With help from family, friends, coaches, teammates, and her therapist, Simone Biles worked her way out of that difficult period. She stayed away from the gym for a while and then went back into training and blew everybody’s mind at the World Championships in 2023. Part 1 of the Netflix series ends with her preparing for the Paris Olympics. Netflix will release Part 2 later this year.

Addendum: Donald Trump recently appeared at a meeting of the National Association of Black Journalists where, among other horrific statements, he said that immigrants are going to take “Black jobs.” Simone Biles posted to her social media, “I love my black job.”