The 2024 Paris Olympics kicked off on July 27 and one of the most anticipated events, women’s artistic gymnastics, is already underway.
With that comes the return of the GOAT Simone Biles, who is making her long awaited return to the Olympic stage, especially after the event of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
At her last Olympics, Biles withdrew during the team final. Her iconic vault appeared to be a little bit off during practice, and that carried over in competition. According to commentators, her usually impeccable vault ended up falling a twist or two too short, and it appeared as though the gymnast had gotten lost in the air.
Despite competing in the floor event for the team final, Biles eventually withdrew from the competition, although Team USA still pulled off a silver medal. She accredited her errors to the “twisties,” and pulled out to focus on her mental health.
Because of her heartbreaking withdrawal in 2021, Biles’s return is highly anticipated. Her energetic return began at the Olympic qualifiers on Sunday, but, according to the Associated Press, during warmups she sustained an injury, putting her return in jeopardy.
It appeared that Biles had tweaked her calf during her warmup, and had to have it taped before officially beginning the competition. Despite the injury, the gymnast appeared in high spirits, although she had to crawl to some of her events to save her strength for the actual gymnastics itself.
According to USA Today, she still scored top scores on the vault, balance beam, and floor exercise. all of which she will compete in for the Women’s artistic gymnastics individual finals. She also earned a spot alongside fellow Team USA Gymnast Suni Lee in the women’s individual all-around. It seems that as long as her spirits are high, she’s not going to let a little calf injury stop her comeback.
Peacock is streaming the 2024 Olympics all day every day. Simone Biles fans can watch her compete in the women’s team final on July 30 at 12:15 PM EST, the all-around individual final on August 1 at 12:15 PM EST, the vault final on August 3 at 10:20 AM EST, the balance beam final on August 5 at 6:38 AM EST, and the floor exercise final on August 5 at 8:23 AM EST.
Schedules and results are on the official Olympics website.
Fans worried about Simone’s injury don’t need to be, so far she’ll be competing in every event she qualified for and will likely wipe the competition clean.