In late September of 2023, Netflix started filming Simone Biles Rising, directed by Katie Walsh. This documentary starts right after the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and takes viewers 4 years leading up to the Paris Olympics in 2024. The documentary primarily got great reviews, with many stating that it was very inspiring and dramatic. Rotten Tomatoes (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/tv/simone_biles_rising) gave the documentary a score of 100%.
The documentary is one season with two episodes; however, the second part is coming out on October 25th with another two episodes. Both episodes are almost an hour long, so about 2 hours in total. The first part of the documentary covers her mental perseverance as she emotionally recovers from her heartbreaking performance at the 2020 Olympics. Biles says that she has intuition, and she almost felt as though something bad was going to happen. “I’ve always had really good intuition about things. Like, freaky. I never tell people about it, but I can feel a lot of things, like they’re gonna happen before it does happen. And unfortunately, I felt that way about the Olympics.” The second part of the documentary follows Biles’ comeback as an athlete and her amazing performances in the 2024 Olympic Trials.
Simone Biles won 3 gold and 1 bronze medal at this year’s games. Through this, the documentary really displayed putting her back on top, reinstating Biles as the GOAT. But it took a while to get there from the disaster in 2021, when Simone had to leave the Olympics due to her vault and other mistakes. During this vault she got lost in the air and couldn’t find the ground, so she had to change the layout of it mid-air which is a very difficult thing for gymnasts to do.
The vault ended with everyone speechless on how she even ended up landing on her feet. Simone left the Olympics and reassured her teammates that they would be fine without her in the following championships. After Simone withdrew from the rest of the competition, she was heavily criticized by the world, being called a quitter and a loser, and this really wore her down mentally, and physically.
Biles’ coach states that all the competitions were very lonely for the athletes, they had to stay in the village and couldn’t go out. He says that every day was gymnastics, they would go practice in the gym, come back, go online, and then they would still be thinking about gymnastics. Biles talks about how she had to fight demons to overcome the twisties. The twisties are a condition that gymnasts have been getting for years. It can become very dangerous because the brain and body do not sync. For example, when gymnasts do a cartwheel, the brain knows what the body is supposed to be doing. But when they are in the air, it is different and when flying through the air they need to be able to see the ground, with the twisties they lose sight of the ground and get lost in the air. One thing that Simone says would have helped her get over the twisties was if her family had been there. While at the Olympics she had to travel alone and always be alone due to Covid. When her mother was interviewed, she said that she and her husband had gone to every single one of Simone’s competitions over the span of 20 years. The lack of emotional support for these athletes was a factor in the depressing feeling at the Olympic games.
Simone’s vault may have ended up being a good thing; however, because it brought up a conversation about abuse in gymnastics and how athletes are being treated behind closed doors. Simone is an abuse survivor and the conversation being brought back stirred up deep emotions that she hadn’t felt in a while, so this was also a contributing factor to her stress level. Simone says that at the end of the day, the vault was an awful and bitter thing that did force her to take a much-needed break. In the end it helped her come back and be a much better athlete in the 2024 Olympics in Paris. After not being sure if she would ever compete again, she was able to rewrite her ending of the story. She may still be able to compete in the 2028 Olympics so she ends up saying “Thank God for that vault.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO-vMUApyJQ
