“Was Having a Full Blown Panic Attack”- Simone Biles Was Scared to Disappoint the World Before Her Olympic Debut

American gymnast, Simone Biles, is arguably one of the greatest gymnasts of all time. Biles made her international debut in 2009. With 25 World Championship medals, she is the most decorated gymnast in the history of the sport. However, her journey was not so easy. She went through her own set of struggles to get to the top.

Simone Biles delivered consistent performances all these years, which separated her from her contemporaries. Simone made her Olympic debut in 2016 at the Rio Olympic games. By then she was already established as a very successful gymnast who was awaiting her first Olympic medal. But as any other person in the world, the gymnastics GOAT, too, was frightened before her debut.

Simone Biles speaks on her Olympic debut 

Simone was all set to debut in the Rio Olympics as a part of the United States gymnastics team. Before the Olympics, there was a lot of buzz in the media regarding her performance. Biles finished first in the Olympic trials of the United States team, and as a result, the media declared that she was America’s best hope to win the gold medal in Rio.

Simone recalled an incident when she was training before the Rio Olympics in her book ‘Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance.’ Her bar rotation routine was inaccurate during training which made her very frustrated. Simone’s coach asked her to go back home to relax and rejuvenate for the next day’s practice.

On her journey back home, she was fighting back the feeling of failure. As soon as she reached home, she threw herself on the bed and started crying. “My chest heaved and I could barely catch my breath. I felt as if I was having a full-blown panic attack”, she wrote.

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Simone was scared to disappoint the world with her Olympic debut. The star gymnast revealed in her book, how she felt about the build-up done by the media. Speaking on the media prediction she wrote, “I refused to read any of those stories. How could I think about winning gold and making history when I couldn’t even get my bar routine straight”. According to her, such news predictions gave her a lot of anxiety.

Simone’s Olympic debut

Despite having a panic attack before the Olympics, Simone marched toward Rio very confidently. Biles breezed through the qualifying rounds and even helped the team to qualify in the first place. Her team included Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez, Madison Kocian, and Aly Raisman. The team was called ‘The Final Five’.

The United States Women’s gymnastics team won the Gold medal in artistic gymnastics. Overall, Simone won 4 Gold medals and 1 Bronze medal. The champion gymnast won the gold medal in the team event, all round, floor exercise, and vault.

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However, Simone has been away from gymnastics for almost a year now and fans await her comeback to the sport.