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Simone Biles returned to competition on Tuesday for the balance beam final at the Tokyo Olympics.
It was a tough week for the fourth-time gold medalist, who withdrew from the team competition and several individual events, and she revealed after her bronze medal performance in the balance beam that she was dealing with more than a case of the “twisties.”
While speaking after her Tokyo Olympic curtain call, Biles revealed that she was also dealing with the recent death of her aunt.
“It wasn’t easy pulling out of all those competitions,” Biles told reporters, via The Guardian. “People just thought it was easy, but I physically and mentally was not in the right head space and I didn’t want to jeopardize my health and my safety because at the end of the day, it’s not worth it.
“My mental and physical health is above all medals that I could ever win. So to be clear, to do beam, which I didn’t think I was going to be, just meant the world to be back out there. And I wasn’t expecting to walk away with the medal. I was just going out there doing this for me.”
The 24-year-old Biles is now tied with Shannon Miller for the most Olympic medals by a US gymnast.
