The Paris Olympics are starting now, and if they don’t bring the world together over the next two and a half weeks—not this world—they might at least help us think a little less about all the problems they entail. Once again, this time from Paris, we’ll see athletes like Simone Biles, who may well become the poster child of them all, do something great in sports. And it’s always worth watching, every time.
Of course, Biles is not the only American story. There are so many other athletes and stories, in our country alone, that deserve mention, far too many to list here. We will see Sha’Carri Richardson try to run the 100 meters faster than any woman in the world, once and for all overcoming the ridiculous marijuana ban that kept her from competing against the world in Tokyo. We have always been a country of runners and jumpers. Three years later, but it’s not too late, we will finally get the chance, on a stage like this, to see Dallas’ Richardson chase gold.
We’ll see the great Katie Ledecky attempt to dominate the rest of the world in women’s swimming, and perhaps win an almost ridiculous fourth consecutive gold medal in the 800-meter freestyle. All she’s done so far in her career is win seven gold medals and three silvers, in addition to 26 world championship medals. When she jumps back in the water in Paris, swimming will look like the same kind of main event it once did when Michael Phelps was back in the water at the Olympics.
So it’s Sha’Carri and Katie. It’s finally a chance to see LeBron James and Steph Curry on the same court, trying to win a title, this time a world title, together after all the victories they’ve had in the NBA.
But despite all this, Simone Biles will be the American to watch in Paris, hoping to return to the top of her sport, literally aiming for the sky, three years after she was so afraid of crashing to earth in Tokyo. It was there, as we all learned, that this young woman’s mid-career crisis truly happened in mid-flight.
Heading into the Tokyo Games, it felt like Biles was part of Team USA and part of everyone else; like all the coverage on every NBC platform was going to be about the most gifted gymnast our country has ever produced and the world has ever seen. But then, even though she would go on to win medals in the team competition and on the balance beam, what we didn’t know, but would find out, was that once she was in the air, doing things only she had ever done, how scared she was.
It was because of what gymnasts call “twisties.” She would do a flip and spin in the air, not knowing if she would be able to land safely. The twisties had plagued her before. Now they were back and about to rob her of another Olympic moment, what might have been her last, at least at the time. Then her bravest moment was confessing her fears to all of us. In many ways, it was as brave as flying through the air.
Here’s what she told Alex Cooper in an April podcast about how turns can literally knock you out of the air as you’re doing things in the air again that no one has ever been able to do:
“I have no idea where I am.”
But now she’s back, at 27, and knows exactly where she stands, in the spotlight once again. An Olympian as small as anyone in Paris has a chance to become the biggest story of all if she comes back to the top and wins gold again. She’s won gold and everything in between since she won her first national title as a teenager 11 years ago. In total, she’s won a ridiculous 37 medals between the Olympics and the world championships. And she may be better, right now, as these Games are about to begin, than she’s ever been. On top of everything she’s done as the GOAT, she’s now trying to write a comeback story like this one.
Simone Biles: This isn’t the only story. This is just the best one that’s happened at the Paris Summer Games for the American athletes we’re talking about today. If you’re a basketball fan, come on, you know you’re going to love seeing LeBron and Steph finally get together. You know you’re going to see some heroics again when Ledecky tries to hit the wall first again, and you know you’re going to see the Americans try to win another gold medal in basketball, although it would have been a lot more fun to watch them try to do so if Caitlin Clark, the biggest women’s basketball star on the planet, had been added to the team like she should have been.
And guess what? It will be even fun to watch a talented 35-year-old shooting guard named Jimmer Fredette try to win a gold medal in basketball in the 3-on-3 competition.
Again: This is just a short list of American athletes, some of whom will have the opportunity to perform on a stage like this for the first time in their lives. It’s still the most enduring beauty of the Olympics if you’re not Biles, Ledecky or LeBron.
The Olympics are not what they used to be, or what they were supposed to be. You know how political they can be, especially in countries like Russia and China. But at the end of the day, they’re still athletes trying to do something great, against the world and in front of the world. That’s what we still come for. And, for perhaps the last time at the Olympics, we get to see Simone Biles fly.
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