Simone Biles. Karen Hickey/ISI Photos/Getty Images
Simone Biles is determined to stay focused ahead of and during the upcoming 2024 Summer Olympic games, and she has a particular strategy in mind that she called “important.”
Speaking to Today’s Hoda Kotb on Wednesday, July 17, the seven-time Olympic gold medalist explained that she is going to be “limiting social media” while competing in Paris, even going so far as to avoid one platform altogether.
While the gymnast says she will still engage with her Instagram and TikTok accounts, she plans to completely stay off of X.
Biles, 27, famously withdrew from the team final at 2020 Tokyo Olympics after experiencing “the twisties” – a condition in which, basically defined, a gymnast’s body and mind are not working in sync. She noted in April on an episode of the “Call Her Daddy” podcast that she was particularly afraid to see what people were saying about her on X following her withdrawal.
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“The world is going to hate me. And I can only see what they’re saying on Twitter right now. That was my first thought,” she explained.
However, as Biles told Kotb: “Insta is good. It’s a good way to connect. It’s a way to share what we’re going through. And TikTok. I’ve tried to make a little more TikToks, I’m not the greatest at that. I’m learning.”
Simone Biles. Elsa/Getty Images
Biles, who is the most decorated gymnast of all time, additionally related to Kotb that she’s “more mature” this go-around at the Olympics, and therefore she’s “just being unapologetically me.”
“I would say the only thing I have to prove is to myself that I can get out there and do it again,” she said.
Biles also stressed that her own happiness is a priority when it comes to her sport now. “As long as I was having fun and doing what I love, then that’s all that you can do, because I don’t want to look back 50 years from now and be like, ‘Wow, she was good, but she was so miserable.”
Before going for gold in the Olympics, Simone Biles overcame a childhood that wasn’t always easy. The gymnast spent nearly three years in foster care before her grandparents Ronald and Nellie Biles adopted her at the age of 6. Once she found a stable home in Texas, Simone discovered gymnastics and worked her way to […]
“And I think a couple times I might have thought that, but now I’m just like, ‘Wow, look at her go,” she added. “She’s having so much fun. She’s loving what she’s doing, who she’s doing it with.’ So really, just embracing that moment.”
Another practice that has helped Biles maintain focus? Therapy.
“I think before I was kind of pushing down my trauma, and now I’ve learned to speak on it and kind of release that,” she noted. “I think we used to think of therapy as a weakness, and now I think of it as a strength.”
The 2024 Paris Olympics will take place July 26 through August 11.
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