She wrote on Instagram that a mental block meant she could not “tell up from down.”
With only two days left until the gymnastics apparatus finals begin at the Tokyo Games, Simone Biles still hasn’t announced whether she will compete in them. But she said on Instagram on Friday that she was still struggling with a mental block that gymnasts call “the twisties” that in part prompted her to withdraw from the team final and the all-around. “Literally can not tell up from down,” she wrote in an Instagram story. “It’s the craziest feeling ever. Not having an inch of control over your body.” Biles, the four-time Olympic gold medalist, wrote that she “seriously cannot comprehend how to twist,” and noted that this disconnect between her mind and body is scary and has happened before, but only on the vault and floor exercise. “This time it’s literally on every event,” she wrote. Since backing out of the all-around that teammate Sunisa Lee ended up winning on Thursday, Biles has left the Olympic training venue for a gym in Tokyo that has soft landings, including a foam pit.
