Simone Biles has reflected on her experiences at Tokyo 2020 after she finished the Olympics with a bronze medal in the balance beam final.
The 24-year-old Team USA gymnast concluded her Olympic campaign by winning a bronze medal in the balance beam final on Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021, after pulling out of a number of events due to mental health concerns. She took to social media to reflect on her time at the Games, in which she also won a silver in the team all-around event.
Simone captioned an image of the Olympic rings: “Not at all how I imagined or dreamed my second Olympics would go but blessed to represent the USA.
“I’ll forever cherish this unique Olympic experience. Thanks everyone for the endless love and support. I’m truly grateful – leaving Tokyo with 2 more Olympic medals to add to my collection isn’t too shabby!
“7 time Olympic medallist (sic).”
She added on her Instagram Story: “Leaving Tokyo with a full heart.”
Simone decided to pull out of the individual all-around, vault, bars and floor finals last week due to mental health issues and the twisties — which causes gymnasts to become disoriented mid-air — and was saddened that people thought she had quit the events.
She told E! Online: “It wasn’t an easy decision so it hurts that people were like, ‘Oh she quit or she did this’ because I’ve worked five years for that, why would I quit?”
“Like, I’ve been through so much over the past couple years in the sport, like, I just don’t quit. That’s not what I do. But the girls could see it and I knew that they would get the job done and that’s exactly what they did… so they won silver.
“At the end of the day, we’re not just athletes or entertainment, we’re human too and we have real emotions. And sometimes, they don’t realize we have things going on behind the scenes that affect us whenever we go out and compete.”
