Simone Biles back on the platform: in the race on August 5 after the Tokyo blackout, Paris 2024 in the sights

Simone Biles has decided: go back to the races. The American superstar announced her return to competition at the US Classic in the Chicago area in early August. It will be her first appearance after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and after her marriage to the American football player Jonathan Owensnow defenseman for the Green Bay Packers.

USA Gymnastics announced Wednesday that Biles, a seven-time Games medalist and 2016 Olympic champion, is among the attendees of the Aug. 5 event at NOW Arena in Hoffman Estates.

An event with strategic importance, which serves as an approach to the national championships, scheduled this year at the end of August in San Jose. The planning of his return inevitably suggests a candidacy for the Paris Olympics, in a team that in the absence of the Russian champions in Tokyo won the World Cup in Liverpool. With Japanese adventure companions such as Jade Carey, Jordan Chilesand new grafts such as Skye Blakely and Shilese Jones.

From the sensational forfeit of the 2020 Olympics, his run-up starts again, after two years dedicated to focusing on his mental health, widening the field of his attention to the well-being of athletes in general. Biles was supposed to be the absolute protagonist, but during the team final in which the USA won the silver she did not go down on the platform, limiting herself to supporting her teammates. A surrender that she anticipated in the all around, vaulting and floor exercise finals. Biles returned for the balance beam final, where she won a bronze medal.

Since then she has dedicated herself to the story with her future husband often immortalized on Instagram, engaging in the cause to protect mental health after her blackout had put the issue in the foreground. She now she evidently feels in a position to face the return to a super competitive sport, with young opponents such as the British, the Chinese, and obviously her teammates. But she’s never abstracted from the sport she’s dominated, and she knows what awaits her. On the platform, and within herself.