returns to racing after mental health problems at the Olimpiade- Corriere.it

Simone Biles is back. The gymnastics star, 26, plans to compete again at the US Classic near Chicago in early August. It is her first event since the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Biles, a seven-time gold medalist and 2016 Olympic champion, had made headlines in Japan, where the decision to step away from competitions to focus on her mental health had shifted the attention from the Games themselves to the general well-being of the athletes.

The joy of marriage and the return

The last couple of years have been something of a whirlwind for Simone Biles. Last April, she married NFL player Jonathan Owens — now a defensive back for the Green Bay Packers. The 26-year-old later became one of the most vocal supporters of the debate on the mental frailty of her colleagues. The return to the sport that she has dominated for nearly a decade suggests that the American wants to indulge in an outing on her own terms. The US Classic is one of the main events on the USA Gymnastics annual calendar and typically serves as a sort of warm-up for the national championships, this year scheduled for late August in San Jose.

Biles has already used the Us Classic as a return stage in the past: in 2018, after a two-year break following the record of medals in Rio de Janeiro (4 golds and a bronze) in two hours, she proved to have remained the absolute number one in his sport, setting the stage for another spectacular run that would include two more world championships and three more national titles. Biles has in many ways become the face of the US Olympic movement, even as she has kept her social media channels almost entirely free of gymnastics, instead using them to highlight snippets of her personal life. And for the first time since she became famous as a teenager in 2013, she won’t have the weight of being the standard bearer of the US program.