I am not a sporty person. I never played team sports and any love I feel for football is mostly inherited rather than organically grown. But there’s one sport I loved to watch from the off: gymnastics. And one body has held my attention like no other, a sublimely compact figure that seemingly defies physics (suspended mid-air for too-long seconds) and makes my jaw slack. That body (all 4ft 8in) belongs to Simone Biles, one of the greatest gymnasts of all time.
Biles, 19, is an aspirational American dream in motion: by the age of six she was taking gymnastics classes; only recently she had an entire gym facility built for her by her family. Since she won the world title in 2013, she hasn’t lost a single competition. She’s been world all-around champion three times (the first African American to do so), and holds the record for the most world gold medals (10). She packs in more twists and flips than any previous champion, to the point that one manoeuvre has been named after her.
Watching her incredibly difficult routines makes me feel limitless, tearfully proud, fiercely protective. She is singular, for her unique skill set, yes, but also as a young black girl in a predominantly white sport: in 2013, an Italian competitor, Carlotta Ferlito, joked about “painting our skin black” to win.
Soon, Biles will go to Rio to compete in her first Olympics (she was too young to enter in 2012) and, if she wins three medals, will ascend to the position of the most awarded American gymnast of all time. “I just keep blowing my own mind,” she said last year. Ours too, Simone.
