Jo-2020: The day Simone Biles fell

Tokyo, Japan |Simone Biles cracked.The superstar of gymnastics abandoned its teammates on Tuesday at the start of the general team of gymnastics competition at the Tokyo Olympics after having missed its first movement on jump, then told the press to have "to face its demons" and "have as much confidence ”as in the past, nor take as much pleasure in exercising your sport.

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The Ariake Gymnastics Center of Tokyo will long remember July 27, 2021, the day when Simone Biles, unparalleled competitor, has reached her track in full competition.

A sign before runner during Sunday qualifications, the errors that the five -time Olympic champion is not used to doing.She had still managed to qualify for the six finals on the program in Tokyo, a rare feat.

Tuesday, it all starts with a passage to the jump well below its usual standards, concluded with a note of 13,766 points.She seems disappointed, not understanding what is happening herself, she talks with her coaches, then disappears to the general amazement of present journalists and members of the teams in the stands.

Before returning as a replacement for asymmetrical bars.On the competition sheet, she goes into "R", for replacement.

Dance and applause

The American Federation then indicates to AFP that it is uncertain for the rest of the games and evokes "medical reasons".However, Simone Biles does not seem injured: the proof, she makes stretching along the beam and remains standing to encourage her teammates.She shouts, jumps, beats hands, in a supported manner.She dances to the sound of music that passes during passages to the ground.

Three cameras follow her permanently and leave her no respite.She encourages the team she has just left in the open countryside.

Her coaches, Cécile Canqueteau-Landi and Laurent Landi, a French couple who has taken her since 2017, regularly exchange with her, with words or looks.

She spends almost the whole competition on the carpet.Then receives with the American team the silver medal of the team competition, playful on the podium.The president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, said a few words to him.

The United States, reduced by the loss of its leader, is dethroned by Russia.

At 24, Simone Biles is considered the greatest gymnast of all time.And she was already given a great winner of these Olympic Games, for months.She is known to have a steel mind.

"Simone vs Herself"

She will have "pressure on her shoulders," said her coach Laurent Landi a few weeks ago.

But it is she, the one who considers herself as a "survivor" as victims of sexual assault by the doctor of the American team, who comes to explain what is happening, warmly surrounded by her team.

"As soon as I get on the carpet, it's just me and my head...Treat with demons in my head [...] I have to do what is good for me and focus on my mental health and not compromise my health and well-being, ”she explained, the tears mixing with her confidences.

Simone contre elle-même, "Simone vs Herself", comme le titre du documentaire qu’elle a produit, diffusé tout récemment.

Out of standard champion, Biles, 24, could aim in Tokyo the record of Soviet Larissa Latynina and her nine gold medals.After her disappointment on Tuesday, the one who has not lost a general competition since 2013 decided to "take the days one after the other and see how it will happen".

His next meeting in Tokyo is set for Thursday with the general competition.Unless she is missing...

Tokyo, Japan |Placed with foster family in her childhood, sexually assaulted in adolescence, Simone Biles overcome all the events to settle at the top of the gymnastics, before spreading her fragility during the general team competition of the Olympic Games ofTokyo.

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Few expecting that she cracks in full light and abandoned her teammates: "I have no more confidence in myself as before [...] I have the impression that I no longer have as much pleasure as before, "she explained to justify her abandonment, which did not prevent" Team USA "from finishing second.

She remains the greatest gymnast of all time: herself playing it, by sporting the head of a rhinestone, goat in English, word game with goat, acronym for "Greatest of All Time" on her leotard.be the best sportsman of all time in his discipline.

Never, before her, a gymnast had turned five world crowns in the general competition."Sometimes I wonder how I do, I would like to be able to extract myself from my body to see me with my own eyes," she said.

She says she has always loved "the feeling of flying" that gymnastics gives her.More athletic, more powerful, the small Texan bomb (1.42 m, 47 kg) hovers above all.Four acrobatics (two on the ground, one in the beam and one on the jump) bear its name, which means that it is the first to have succeeded in international competition.

For the moment.Way of always pushing the limits, she added in her secret boot a new figure in the jump, never made by a woman.

"Saved" by his grandparents

When little Simone discovers gymnastics at six years old during a school outing, a coach immediately spots it.

It might look like a fairy tale, it is not one.Because her early childhood, Biles, born in Ohio, sharing it with a mother "alcohol and drug dependent", who makes "back and forth in prison", which is worth her and her threeBrothers and sisters to be placed in foster family, she confides with emotion on American television in 2017.

"I have never been able to count on my biological mother.I remember that I was always hungry, always afraid.»»»»

«Mes grand-parents m’ont sauvée»»»», dit-elle de Nellie et Ron Biles, qu’elle considère comme ses parents et qui ont changé le cours de son histoire en l’adoptant, ainsi que sa petite sœur, tandis que le reste de la fratrie a atterri chez d’autres membres de la famille.

Dès ses huit ans, Biles fait une rencontre décisive, celle d’Aimee Boorman, l’entraîneuse qui la portera vers les sommets, sa «deuxième maman»»»» aussi, qui veillera à son équilibre sur les agrès comme dans la vie.

It is under her wing that she becomes, at 16, world champion for the first time, in 2013.With her too that she offers her Olympic podiums in 2016.

"I am much more than that"»»

Boorman who went to Florida, the adopted Texan revives training under the direction of the French Laurent Landi and Cécile Canqueteau-Landi after a post-Olympic year Sabbatique.

It is shortly after Biles revealed another intimate injury: in January 2018, she revealed to be one of the more than two hundred victims of Larry Nassar, the ex-Médecin of the American female gymnastics team heavily condemned for hundreds of'Sexual assaults committed for two decades.

Leaving silence, she has not hesitated to publicly denounce the passivity of the American sports authorities.

Quand la Fédération américaine de gymnastique lui souhaite un «bon anniversaire»»»», elle lui répond sans ménagement qu’elle ferait mieux de lancer une enquête indépendante sur ces violences sexuelles.

Après «tout ce que j’ai traversé avec la fédération, retrouver l’amour du sport et être simplement Simone, ça a été un long chemin»»»», confie-t-elle.

Nor does she hide, in the documentary Simone vs Herself, what the violence it has suffered in terms of suffering: hours under the duvet and psychiatric consultations.

Mais «je sais que cette expérience horrible ne me définit pas»»»», explique Biles, qui a soutenu avec force le mouvement Black lives matter et chez qui Cécile Canqueteau-Landi voit une volonté de «marquer l’histoire»»»» aussi parce que «c’est une athlète noire»»»».

"I am much more than that," she insists.I am unique, intelligent, talented, motivated and passionate.I promised myself that my story would be much bigger than that.»»»»