| Simone Biles just hit the road and it is one heck of a schedule: Seven weeks, 35 performances before packed crowds, and a whirlwind of media and promotional events along the way. The four-time Olympic gold medalist and 19-time world champion is not only the headliner but also one of the architects of the Gold Over America Tour, which, given her popularity and the initial response, seems virtually guaranteed to be a serious commercial success. But there is a bigger goal that that. “To see them smile,” Valorie Kondos Field, a storied collegiate gymnastics coach, a long-term friend of Biles and the tour’s coordinator, told me via telephone this week. “We are trying to show the whole person of these athletes. The fans will get to see the silly side of Simone and it is wonderful. You get to hear her voice as a young woman who got into the sport because she loved it. It is about getting that joy back. Simone wanted to find the love in what she is doing again.” The tour began on Tuesday and is the first public gymnastics action Biles is undertaking since her traumatic yet ultimately inspirational Olympic adventure in Tokyo. Along the road, she won’t be alone, as the roster also includes Olympians past and present such as Laurie Hernandez, Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles, MyKayla Skinner, plus hugely popular UCLA star Katelyn Ohashi and others. The Tokyo Olympics was supposed to be the time when Biles added an exclamation point to her already-etched status as the greatest gymnast and one of the greatest athletes in history. An overwhelming favorite to win five golds, she eventually was forced to withdraw during the team final, prioritizing her mental health. It later emerged the accompanying stresses of the Olympic campaign had caused her to suffer from the “twisties,” a devastating gymnastic condition that prevents the athlete from recognizing where they are in midair, making landings not just difficult but severely dangerous. Biles pulled out of the individual all-around, with gold going to United States colleague Sunisa Lee, and skipped the apparatus finals with the exception of the beam, in which she claimed bronze. Her plight, coming so soon after the public difficulties faced by tennis star Naomi Osaka, sparked important further discussion about mental health and the issues faced by athletes, especially young ones. “Simone’s really young,” seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady told USA TODAY. “I’m 44. When I was 24, I certainly didn’t have all the answers to all the different pressures and the adversities that you face. I don’t know if we have expectations for people that we should have all the answers, have all things figured out at young ages.” Elite gymnastics carries an intense burden for both the body and the mind. Biles is in her mid-20s but was considered a veteran while still in her teens. To get to the top requires years of sacrifice and in most cases, it’s still not enough. Through it all, the cloud of serial abuser Larry Nassar and his evil catalog of crimes sits above the entire national team program. The astonishingly brave testimony of Biles and hundreds of Nassar victims at his court trials and during senate hearings is some of the most moving – and utterly haunting – television you could ever see. In many ways the tour, deliberately designed to highlight happiness and celebration, is shaped as the complete antidote to that darkness. Biles had one non-negotiable criteria for being a part of Gold Over America – that USA Gymnastics – the organization that failed to protect her and others, was to be in no way involved. The tour’s performances mix artistic creativity with dance and feature active conversations about mental health and anxiety along with extraordinary feats of gymnastic excellence. One of the most poignant moments, Kondos Field said, is when Biles’ friend Ohashi reads a letter to her younger self. This is far from a routine gymnastics show. “It is something much deeper,” Kondos Field added. The relationship between Biles and Kondos Field goes back years. Originally Biles had thoughts of going to college and attending UCLA, where Kondos Field was a groundbreaking coach whose team crafted routines that would go viral on social media and made meets at Pauley Pavilion a hot ticket even in the crowded Los Angeles entertainment space. Their current collaboration is filled with champions, but this time that’s not what matters. Its focal point is to find again what made these athletes fall in love with gymnastics in the first place, all those years ago before it became about seven-hour training sessions and one-mistake-and-you’re-done levels of strain. “With all those tour stops on the schedule mistakes are going to happen,” Kondos Field said. “That’s just part of the fun. “If you are not failing you are not trying hard enough,” she added. “It means you are going after life with everything you’ve got. Here’s what others have said … Ben Church, CNN: “It’s not yet clear whether Biles will compete at Paris 2024, meaning the tour could be one the last chances for many people to see her perform live.” Dan Wetzel, Yahoo Sports: “For Biles, this is a chance to finally be free of USAG… It will be the kind of show that Simone Biles wants.” Iliana Limon Romero, LA Times: “Star gymnast Simone Biles is still recovering from trauma, but she finds strength in helping others.” |
