“As soon as I did it, I was like, ‘You gotta be s—-ing me.’ Like, right now, really right now, we’re gonna do this?” Simone Biles recalled in the first episode of the documentary, Simone Biles Rising, remembering how she got lost in the air during her warmup vault at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. On the Call Her Daddy podcast, Biles further elaborated on the mind-body disconnect she faced, describing it as “fighting [her] body and [her mind]“. Biles is perhaps the best voice against twisties, but she is not the only victim and is not restricted to gymnastics. The woman has even inspired a track and field legend going through the same.
“Oh man, there were a lot. There was definitely a lot growing up. I remember, it’s so funny because a story that really hit with me recently was the Simone Biles, when she had the twisties, she talked about it,” this is what Dalilah Muhammad had to say when she was asked of any hurdles to her Olympics dreams in a recent talk with Paddy Steinfort. The twisties happen when a gymnast is in midair and loses their sense of where they are and how they’ll land, making the move risky. Biles described it as being “lost in the air” and was the reason she skipped the Tokyo Olympics.
The 2016 Olympic Gold medalist in 400 Metres Hurdles said that, “I had that once. And I think in track and field, we don’t call it that. But I remember at a very young age, I used to do the high jump.” During her high school years at Benjamin N. Cardozo High School in Queens, New York, she was a versatile track and field athlete who competed in multiple events, including the high jump. She still holds the school record in the high jump.
She continued, “I was actually a better high jumper growing up, but there came to a point where I can no longer jump over the bar. I remember I would run up to the bar and it was like a fear.”
This story is developing…
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