Much has changed since Biles’ history-making coronation at Rio 2016, but one truth remains: her only competition is herself

Simone Biles: 'Some days I'm like, why am I here? But in the end it's all worth it'

Simone Biles: 'Some days I'm like, why am I here? But in the end it's all worth it'

Simone Biles looked pissed off.

The smile that lit up the 2016 Olympics in Rio, where she affirmed her presumptive status as the greatest gymnast ever with four gold medals in seven days, was nowhere to be found during last month’s US Classic in Columbus, which marked Biles’ first meet after nearly two years away from competition.

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She’d stepped out of bounds on her floor exercise. She’d taken a hop back on her vault. She took a rare fall off the uneven bars that left her in an unfamiliar position entering the final rotation: second place.

Then Biles, needing at least a 14.0 on the balance beam to avoid her first defeat since 2013, took a deep breath and nailed her routine, making a mockery of the discipline’s inherent unpredictability and that 711-day layoff. Her composite tally of 58.700 was not only enough to win, but marked the highest all-around score in the world since the 62.366 she’d posted in Rio.

Much has happened in the two years since Biles took a break from gymnastics. The sport she’s come to define was rocked by the worst sexual abuse scandal in American sports history. Donald Trump was elected president and has since adopted sports as a proxy battle in the culture wars, ushering in an era of athlete activism unprecedented since the 1960s.

But the 21-year-old from suburban Houston, who will make the second step of her comeback at this weekend’s US gymnastics championships in Boston, was able to show that one constant remains intact: her only competition is herself.

First, the obvious question, given Biles’ body of work and legacy are beyond assail: why even come back?

It’s hard mentally and physically. I remember some of the days I’m like: Why am I here? What am I doing? What did I do?

Sure, there’s a chance to make even more history at Tokyo 2020, where she can become the oldest woman in more than five decades to win the Olympic all-around title, the sport’s most coveted prize, and the first repeat champion since Vera Caslavska did it for the former Czechoslovakia in 1968. But Biles, who was born three months short of the age cutoff for the London Games, had already been hailed as the best gymnast in history before she’d even competed in an Olympics.

“It just didn’t feel like real life while we were doing it,” she told the Guardian this week. “You think it’s some different world, which it was. I almost think you forget how much work you have to put into it until you’re there.”

Biles returned home after the Olympics to the whirlwind, peripatetic existence of a mainstream celebrity, slingshotting around the US for red-carpet walks, promotional appearances and glossy photo shoots when not headlining the 36-city Kellogg’s Tour of Gymnastics Champions or competing on ABC’s Dancing With the Stars. Then came a hard-earned series of vacations with the family and friends she’d sacrificed so much time with during her monastic preparations for Rio.

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But even after 14 months away from the gym, Biles knew she’d be back, if only, as she puts it, because she didn’t want to look back decades from now and wonder: what if?

“I always knew I was probably going to come back,” she said. “It was just a matter of when. And so we kind of just settled down and waited for everything to slow down, and that’s when we decided in October of last year. By December, I had stopped traveling completely and was in the gym full time.”

Following an amicable split with longtime personal coach Aimee Boorman, Biles enlisted the husband-and-wife coaching team of Laurent Landi and Cecile Canqueteau-Landi and training partner Ashton Locklear, who was an alternate for the Rio Games. At the World Champions Centre, the sprawling 56,000 sq ft gym built by her parents as their retirement venture, a constant stream of music – Eastside by benny blanco, Halsey & Khalid is a current staple – helps Biles power through her famed marathon training sessions.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Simone Biles meets US president Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama after the 2016 Olympics. Photograph: Alex Wong/Getty Images

But stepping back into her grueling regimen – six hours a day, six days a week – after so much time away was anything but easy.

“We started with a lot of basics and conditioning in the beginning, so that you get back in competitive shape,” Biles said. “Usually for gymnasts the hardest part about returning is losing the weight you gain while you’re off, but I didn’t gain really anything on my time off so I really didn’t have that to worry about. I was just sore a lot. You just have to push through that.”

She added: “It’s hard mentally and physically. I remember some of the days I’m like: ‘Why am I here? What am I doing? What did I do?’ But in the end it’s all worth it, so I’m happy with my decision to return.”

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The scary part for her rivals, as suggested by her US Classic showing, is that Biles may be better than ever. She won by a whopping 1.2 points despite major deductions on three disciplines, underscoring the caliber of difficulty and execution in her routines that few can even approach.

The vaults that she performed in Rio are both unchanged. It’s the same for the beam, besides the addition of a front pike instead of a front tuck. But she’s added to her already jaw-dropping floor routine, adding a double-double lay-out to her first pass and a front-full to full-in on her second before punctuating it with the familiar double-double tuck and her signature: the Biles.

The biggest improvements have come on the uneven bars, her weakest discipline, where she’s added a shaposh half and a double-double to her dismount under the watch of Laurent, who helped guide Madison Kocian to a silver medal on the apparatus in Rio.

Biles has done some growing up since the Olympics, moving from her parents’ house into her own apartment, going public with her boyfriend (former gymnast Stacey Ervin), turning 21 and adding a French bulldog puppy named Lilo into the fold – even if he’s a bit too naughty to travel for now. She remains bemused by the trappings of stardom: “I got my Olympic ring tattoo and it’s on my right hand and everyone tried to tell me it was on my left hand, and I’m like, ‘OK, so you guys have my arms on your body’. I think I know that for sure!”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Simone Biles has managed to add new tricks to her already formidable arsenal.

Other changes are less welcome. The specter of politics loomed over this year’s Winter Olympics far more than what Biles and her fellow Team USA members dealt with in Brazil, a snake-pit which she is more than content to avoid completely.

“I think everyone puts those expectations on us just because we are on higher platform so they expect us to speak out,” she says. “I feel like depending on your age division and your age audience, you either can or you can’t. For gymnastics, our age audience is very, very young, so we don’t necessarily have to [speak out].”

Then of course there is the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, which has prompted seismic changes in the sport. Biles acknowledged in January that she was abused under the guise of medical treatment by the disgraced former USA Gymnastics team doctor, who is serving an effective life sentence for his crimes. But she finds it extremely difficult to discuss what has happened, particularly while trying to balance her healing with the intense demands of the gym, and does not want to talk about the case in our interview.

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She enters this weekend’s nationals as a big favorite to become the first woman to capture five US all-around titles. At stake are the five places on the United States team that will travel to the world championships in Qatar this fall, which will be finalized at an October selection camp.

“This week will be my second competition back, so I’m trying to take it day by day, competition by competition, and see how that goes,” Biles said. “The ultimate goal in the end will be worlds for this year and then in a couple of years the Olympics.”

The older, wiser Biles says she feels less pressure now than ever before, measuring success less by victories and defeats. That must be easy when you never lose, but the point stands.

“Everybody thinks a champion has to always be the winner, come out on top,” she said. “But I think everybody inside is a champion themselves depending on how you handle your failures and your successes.”