Simone Biles was ‘angry’ about beam routine but bounced back, coach says

In case the four-letter word she dropped didn’t make it clear, Simone Biles was “very, very angry” about her wobblier-than-usual performance on the balance beam during the US Olympic gymnastics trials. 2024, his coach said.

But he bounced back quickly on Friday, June 28, with first-place displays on court and vault.

“This is exactly how it should be,” Laurent Landi told reporters afterward, calling it “a great comeback” for the 27-year-old reigning world champion who is now about to make her third Olympic team and head to the Games. from Paris next month.

Landi, who coaches Biles with his wife, Cecile, said gymnast Kayla DiCello had shaken her by suffering an Achilles tendon injury during her first event, on the vault, and withdrew from the ongoing trials. in Minneapolis.

She also suggested that she is still dealing with what happened during the 2021 Tokyo Games, when Biles failed a vault routine and then withdrew from most of her events after suffering a case of what are called “twisties.” , in which he lost the ability to know where his body was in the air.

“His mental state is calm, he will never fully heal, so that’s why he really needs to calm down,” Landi said.

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“She needs to trust her own practice… Everything goes well for her,” he continued. “And because of this, there is anxiety: ‘Oh, am I going to be the next one to get hurt? What is going to happen to me?’ You can’t control this, so control what you can control.”

He pointed to her “almost perfect floor and then her amazing vault” after the beam as proof, if it was needed, that “she’s really 100% right now.”

Biles herself said something similar to NBC on Friday: “I’m really upset about beam. I’m really disappointed in myself because that’s not how I train. So, from now on, I’m going to try to compete the way I train on that event, because I know I’m good at it.”

“I know I can do better. That’s why I’m going to work on it,” he said.

Landi told PEOPLE on Friday that intense pressure is inevitably part of Olympic-level gymnastics.

“This is what stress produces: anxiety, and you see that someone else is suffering, and you think, ‘What the hell am I going to be next in my life?’ or ‘What’s going to happen to me?’” he said.

Better, he said, to try to concentrate. “Things will happen, mistakes will happen,” she said.

“Trust your training,” he said, adding: “Now it’s just rep after rep.”

And whenever possible, he advised, leave the gym after the competition and try to “think about something else.”

Biles, who has dominated US women’s gymnastics for more than a decade, has been increasingly open about the mental health toll her career has taken and how she balances that with her athletic goals.

Still, she told PEOPLE in 2021, “Sometimes when we talk about these things, we become the face of the situation. I’m not sure I’m fully prepared for that aspect.”

But, “obviously, once I’m a little more open about it, I would love to help other people who are going through these things because it’s very relatable to know that they’re not alone,” she said.

During a podcast interview in April of this year, Biles recalled what went wrong in Tokyo and said she just assumed, “Oh, America hates me. “The world is going to hate me.”

“I thought they were going to ban me from entering the United States,” he said then. “Because that’s what they tell you: ‘Don’t come back if there’s no gold.’ Gold or nothing. Do not come back'”.

Since Tokyo, she has taken a long break from gymnastics and said she has made time for weekly therapy.

If Biles were to form a third team, she would be in elite company: only gymnasts Muriel Grossfeld, Linda Metheny and Dominique Dawes have accomplished that feat.

“It will be wonderful to see her eclipse what I had done many decades ago,” Dawes, the 1996 gold medalist, tells PEOPLE. “She definitely deserved it. I am sure that not only will she help to get the team medal, but she will also get an individual medal.”

“I keep saying this, but I could even see her training for the 2028 Game in Los Angeles… She’s that talented,” says Dawes, who is in Minneapolis while collaborating with Skippy Peanut Butter.

The 2024 U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials continue on Saturday, June 29, with men’s qualifying; women’s qualifying will conclude on Sunday, June 30.