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Simone Biles is opening up about feeling like a "failure" after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Biles made the confession in a interview for the cover for the cover of February's Vanity Fair. The star gymnast said her experience with the "twisties" and other mental health issues during the Tokyo Olympics was a low moment in her life.
“I wish I could sit here and tell you it was glorious,” Biles said of her two-year hiatus from international competition. “When I took a break after 2016, I had the time of my life. I was doing anything and everything. But after 2020, it was kind of depressing until I started therapy and got help. I felt like a failure.”
“Even though I was empowering so many people and speaking out about mental health, every time I talked about my experience in Tokyo — because it obviously didn’t go the way that I had planned — it stung a little bit," she continued. "But all in all, it was the best decision.”
However, Biles said she didn't like how the public put her on a “pedestal as a mental-health advocate."
“I was not okay with that,” she said. “If I can be a lending hand and help people, then I’ll be open, honest, and vulnerable, but you cannot stick me in front of a crowd and say, ‘Do everything she’s doing.’ ”
Since pulling out of the Tokyo Olympics, Biles said she has overcome her fear and is ready for the 2024 Summer Olympics if she's called on.
“If I don’t make it to Paris, it won’t absolutely crush me,” Biles told Vanity Fair.
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