When talent manifests itself in such a spectacular and incomparable way, words are missing.
Perhaps that is why every performance by the spectacular American gymnast Simone Biles that won four gold medals at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and now competes in the Tokyo games, is celebrated with an admiration and amazement that borders on disbelief.
And it is than Biles, with his 26 years, 1, 42 meters high, has revolutionized the world of artistic gymnastics.
This Tuesday it was reported that the gymnast dropped out of the artistic gymnastics team final at the Tokyo Olympics. But remember that his achievements in Rio in 2016 -four gold medals in the floor, jumping, individual general and team general events, and a bronze medal in the competition of the Balance beam – they exceeded what no woman in the US had achieved.
To these victories are added 10 world titles, which made her the first gymnast in history to win three consecutive world championships in the full program.
But his achievements are not only limited to the sports field: something that makes Biles remarkable is also the way in which he overcame his difficult childhood, marked by a drug addicted mother and a sexual abuse scandal that affected the American gymnastics team.
“I wonder if my biological mother regrets”
Biles was only three years old when social services in Columbus, Ohio, had to intervene to rescue four children of Shanon Biles, who was immersed in drugs and alcoholism. The authorities took custody of her children from the mother.
Shanon’s father, Ronald Biles and his second wife, Nellie, kept the younger girls, Simone and Adria.
The older brothers went to live with Ronald’s sister.
Simone’s grandparents later adopted to the girls and it is Nellie whom she calls “mom”.
The gymnast continues to be in contact with her biological mother and is able to speak today in a relaxed way about her childhood.
“When I was younger I asked myself what would have happened to my life if none of this had happened. Sometimes I still wonder if my biological mother regrets it and would like to have done things differently, but I avoid asking myself these questions because I don’t have to answer them, “the gymnast told US media.
“32 Hours per week”
Nellie recalls that Simone was always a girl “who constantly liked to jump and bounce”, and recounted how her first contact with gymnastics was.
A school trip it had been canceled due to bad weather and the school decided instead to visit an artistic gymnastics center.
Simone, just 6 years old, spontaneously showed some pirouettes and the instructors were so impressed that the girl “ came home with a note to the parents that said, have you ever thought about enrolling your daughter in a gymnastics institute? ”
Two years later was discovered by her coach Aimee Borman.
“One day she decided that she would be a great gymnast and since then she has done everything to achieve it,” Borman told the magazine Time .
In his adolescence there were no extracurricular activities or graduation party.
In 2012, Simone decided that instead of going to high school she would study at home, which allowed her to increase her training from 20 to 32 hours per week. A year later he won his first full-program world title.
Sexual abuse scandal
In January of 2016, Simone revealed that she had been a victim of sexual abuse , perpetrated by the doctor of the American team of gymnasts Larry Nassar , sentenced to decades in prison for abusing at least 265 gymnasts during the years that she worked in the team.
“Lately I have felt broken and the more I try to turn off my voice in my head, the louder are the screams. I’m not afraid to tell my story anymore ”, he said in 2018, adding her voice to that of many other women who made complaints through the #MeToo campaign.
“I am also one of the many survivors who were sexually abused by Larry Nassar,” the young athlete wrote in a letter shared via Twitter.
But she also said at the time that she was not going to allow that ordeal to subdue her spirit or her successful career.
“I have promised myself that my history will be much bigger than this and I promise to all of you that I will never give up, “she wrote.
” I love this sport too much and I have never been a coward. I will not let a man and the others who allowed it steal my love and joy ”, he added.
It was something that he later demonstrated with the passion and dedication with which he continued to advance in his career.
Pure power
Biles’s physique is notably different from that of the famous Nadia Comaneci, the Romanian gymnast who achieved the first score 10 of history for his perfect exercises at the Montreal Olympics in 976.
Comaneci’s routines with his long, thin muscles and his movements on toes demonstrated a style almost ballet.
Biles, on the other hand , it’s pure power.
“He has enormous power, impressive for his size,” said Ana Ordóñez, Olympic gymnastics coach female and male at the FlipFlap club in Zaragoza, Spain.
Power means “strength with speed, explosive strength”, He pointed out.
“Simone’s acrobatics, her routines, are very fast.”
Being so short can be an advantage in some events, due to having the center gravity closer to the ground.
“But in other devices it makes it difficult for her to be so short. For example, in horse jumping, she has to jump at the same height as her shorter peers, but her power makes her achieve a spectacular jump, falling a long way from the horse, something that is very difficult for a gymnast of such a short stature. “Ordóñez explained.
” He also has a lot of flexibility, combining flexibility and strength is very difficult. And it has a security in all landings that draws a lot of attention. ”
Another characteristic is that it has an exceptional spatio-temporal orientation .
“That is something innate and it is surprising to see it training after training. You have the feeling that, despite being around, she always knows where she is and how and when she is going to fall ”, said Borman.
“El Biles”
But no innate advantage would have defined Biles’s life without his determination and thousands of repetitions.
Since the “difficulty” of the exercises was incorporated as one of the categories to add scores, gymnasts have opted for increasingly risky routines.
There is a jump, which Biles showed for the first time in 2013, which has become his personal brand and even bears his name.
“El Biles” is “ a double somersault or two laps with the body in plank , that is to say complete me nte extended. But in the last lap, before finishing her second somersault, she makes a turn in another axis, as if we were standing and turning to the right or left, then she combines two axes of rotation, ”Ana Ordóñez explained to BBC Mundo.
A mortal is to take a turn in the air and land on his feet, clarified the Spanish coach.
“The double somersault with the body extended is very difficult because you have to gain a lot of height and it also makes it more difficult for it because when doing a rotation in the second somersault, instead of falling facing the ground, it falls facing forward, then the ground barely sees it ”, he added.
“Mortals are easier backwards than forwards. When the turn is forward it is more difficult to see the ground ”.
“Smiling”
“What I like the most about her is how you see her enjoying gymnastics because she is smiling at the same time,” Ordóñez told BBC Mundo.
“One of the things that has been enhanced with these Olympics (2016) is that the gymnasts have that expressive face because if not they looked like robots. ”
“You see other gymnasts superseries. Simone l sometimes and transmits that passion for gymnastics, enjoy and above all it does not fail , so you enjoy it ”.
This note was originally published in 2016 with reporting by Alejandra Martins.
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