"I get to go to home to my husband, to my dog, to my house" - Simone Biles on her new mental approach to gymnastics
Simone Biles recently talked about the change in her perspective in the 10 years of her glorious gymnastics career. Undoubtedly, the 26-year-old has seen a bunch of highs and lows throughout her journey, but each incident has only helped Biles become more mature. Today, she possesses a new mental approach towards her sport that keeps her calm in most situations.
The legendary gymnast created history this year by competing in the 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium. She completed a full circle of her world stage career that began in 2013, in the Belgian city.
Since then, Biles has been nailing every world championship she competed in, including 2023, in which she won four gold medals and one silver medal.
Moreover, after the event, she penned an emotional post about her journey on her Instagram, adding a heartfelt line, “doing it for the little girl who fell in love with the sport.”
Recently, when Simone Biles appeared in an interview with Today, host Hoda Kotb asked how she dealt with pressure as a grown-up. The four-time Olympic gold medalist said:
"I think in gymnastics I still have to dig deep down and remember why I’m doing it and do it for the little girl as I said in the Instagram post but it is a little bit different."
The gymnast explained that now she is a wife and has her family, which she gets to go back to at the end of the day. It makes her feel good and does not bother her immensely about the pressure in gymnastics. She said in the interview:
"I don’t feel like it's the end of the world or beyond anymore as I felt like that and you know I get to go to home to my husband to my dog to my house and all of the things. So it feels really good," said Biles.
Simone Biles cried in 2013 on being criticized after the US Classic
Simone Biles has definitely grown into a mature and self-sufficient woman, but like every other teenager, she was a bit naive when she was 16. In 2016, while discussing her book 'Courage to Soar', in an interview with Today, the gymnast revealed an incident that made her cry.
Biles recalled that she was not her best at the 2013 US Classic. Her bad experience became even worse when she overheard her coach criticize her. The coach told someone that the gymnast lost because she was fat. It broke Biles’s heart and made her cry. She said in the interview:
“I dismissed myself from the floor so nobody could see me and I walked to the back behind the curtains and I was crying,” the gymnast added.
However, her team coordinator spotted her and encouraged her to work harder and let the results prove her coach wrong.