PARIS: Simone Biles' sixth Olympic gold medal hangs around her neck and, like a little goat blinking, it's a reminder to the gymnast regarded as the greatest of all time that she truly deserves to be in the pantheon of sport's greats.
“So I thought, okay, if everything goes well, we’re going to wear the goat necklace,” Biles said after winning the intense final, which earned her her second gold medal at the Paris Olympics.
“I know most people are excited about it, but at the end of the day, it’s crazy that I’m in the conversation of the best athletes because I still think of myself as Simone Biles from Spring, Texas, doing flips.”
Biles, who has won 39 world and Olympic medals, 29 of which were gold, has not lost an all-around event since 2013, the year she won her first world all-around title.
She won four gold medals at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and appeared to be preparing to polish her Olympic legacy in Tokyo three years ago, before she withdrew from most of her competitions due to what gymnasts call a “mental hurdle.”
“It’s been eight years,” she said of the gap between her all-around Olympic gold medals. “It feels amazing. I was quite naïve in the process, so I appreciate my skills a little bit more.”
Biles, who said she wasn't sure in the immediate aftermath of Tokyo if she would return to the world stage, credited her coaches Cécile and Laurent Landi, her family, her own willingness to work hard on her mental health issues, and her ability to come back after nearly two years and perform much better than before.
She had to use all her mental strength after a misstep on the uneven bars left her in third place midway through the final, just 0.267 points behind leader and silver medalist Rebeca Andrade of Brazil.
“I was pretty disappointed with my performance on bars,” Biles said. “That’s not how I normally swing.
“I’m not the best swinger. I’m not like Zuni (Lee) or Kaylia (Nemoy), but I can swing in a bar, you know?”
After a few minutes of “re-focusing,” Biles showed off some solid balance beam moves to reclaim the lead, and capped off the victory with another impressive floor move.
“I didn’t believe I could do it,” Biles said, adding that she was looking forward to three more finals: the vault, beam and floor exercise.
“Now it’s time to have fun and the hard part is over,” she said with a laugh.
And just in case, she said, she has a toy goat in her room in the athletes' village “to remind herself, 'You can go, you can do this, you've been there, let's go.'”
