In baseball, golf and basketball, we call this the “yips” – the sudden loss of motor skills and muscle memory that prevents a second baseman from throwing the ball to first base accurately, a golfer from making the “gimme” putts he’s been making regularly since high school and an NBA player from making even 50 percent of his free throws.
In gymnastics, this mental block is known as “twisties,” and it’s when the brain disconnects from the body, eliminating the ability to sense the body’s movement and position in space. It can actually make you lose your way in the air and put you at risk for serious injury.
At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Simone Biles, the great talent of her generation — already considered by many to be the greatest gymnast of all time and the favorite to win at least four gold medals — stunned the world by withdrawing from most of the competition, citing mental health concerns.
“I felt like I was in a prison with my brain and my body,” Biles says in “Simone Biles Rising,” directed with style and grace by Katie Walsh. The four-part Netflix documentary is timed to coincide with the Paris Olympics, where Biles will make her comeback after winning her sixth all-around world title at the World Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, last October. (Two of the four episodes have been released to critics.)
This is a rare documentary that not only celebrates the 27-year-old Biles’ incredible career, but also sheds light on mental health issues that can be just as damaging and problematic in an athlete’s life as physical injuries. Whether you’re a gymnastics aficionado or a more casual fan who only becomes interested during Olympic season, it’s hard to imagine anyone not being blown away by Biles’ incredible artistry and her willingness to show us her life and how she handles it under the unblinking spotlight.
“Simone Biles Rising” follows the same always-effective formula as Netflix’s sports documentaries, allowing cameras and microphones to follow its subjects as they train, compete or just hang out at home.
In the premiere episode, Biles and her NFL player husband, Jonathan Owens (who signed with the Bears last March), are seen walking around the home they’re building in Houston, with Owens pointing out walls where they’ll hang memorabilia like her husband’s jerseys, Simone’s Wheaties boxes and Vogue covers.
Jonathan Owens and Simone Biles will marry in Cabo, Mexico in 2023.
There are lighter moments, like when they reminisce about their first date, when Jonathan marvels at Simone’s petite stature (she’s 4’8″), and when Simone went to a game in Green Bay when Owens was still with the Packers. There are also more serious conversations, like when Simone talks about how supportive Jonathan was in the weeks and months following the Tokyo Olympics, noting that she started seeing a sports psychologist regularly after Jonathan saw what she went through.
Biles talks about how it felt when her withdrawal from the Tokyo Olympics spawned tweets and headlines like “Olympic Dropout of the Year!” and “Simone Biles and the Cult of Olympic Dropouts.” She opens the door to reveal her “forbidden Olympic closet” filled with 2020 memorabilia. (“My Tokyo Team USA pin… I was supposed to trade it… My uniform from the opening and closing ceremonies… Here’s my number… I just sat here and cried…”) It’s as if she’s in perspective about the past, but still hiding it. Literally in the closet.
Simone Biles is clearing out her “forbidden Olympic closet” of items related to the 2020 Olympics, which she all but withdrew from.
The series also devotes ample time to interviews with teammates, coaches, journalists, and Simone’s incredibly supportive parents — who were actually her biological grandparents, who adopted her and her sister, Adria, when she was a toddler — and features a brief but informative history of the sport, discussing how pioneering women of color like Betty Okino, Dominique Dawes, and Gabby Douglas changed the story and face of women’s gymnastics.
The documentary series delves into the childhood of Simone Biles and her sister Adria.
But this is primarily the story of Simone’s comeback: While we marvel at footage of Biles performing moves that would be the envy of superheroes (she has five elements to her name: vault, balance beam and floor exercise), Simone reminds us: “People admire you. I’m begging to be a human being.”
The bet here is that Simone Biles will be one of the heroes of the Paris Olympic triumph, but whether she literally ascends to the highest pedestal again or falls just short, we should always respect her plea to remember that she is, after all, only human.
