Simone Biles admitted in a new TikTok video that her body was running on fumes by the time she reached the end of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“I am really tired,” the accomplished gymnast, 27, said in a video she made on Sunday but didn’t post online until Tuesday.
“I feel like my body is slowing starting to shut down, like, it’s ready to be done.”
The day after she recorded that video, Biles fell while competing in the balance beam final Monday and — for the first time at this year’s Olympics — failed to qualify for a medal.
A few hours after that competition, the pro gymnast stepped out of bounds twice during her floor routine, earning her a silver medal in the finals and giving Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade her first gold of the Games.
However, it wasn’t just Biles’ “tired” body that appears to have affected her performance.
The world champion shared that the balance beam final, in particular, was “really weird” and “awkward” this year because of the ambiance.
“You’re trying to stay in your zone, and then people start cheering and then the shushing gets louder, so really, they should be shushed because they’re louder,” she told the press Monday, per USA Today.
“We’ve asked several times if we can have some music, or some background noise, so I’m not really sure what happened there. But, yeah, not our favorite. None of us liked it.”
Aside from Biles, her US teammate Suni Lee also fell on the beam, as well as Romania’s Sabrina Voinea and Brazil’s Julia Soares.
Despite those hiccups, Biles already made her country proud by helping the US win the gold in the gymnastics team final and winning gold for herself in the women’s all-around final.
She has now become the most decorated gymnast of all time and is already keeping an open mind about competing in 2028 at the Olympics in Los Angeles.
“You can never say never,” she told NBC’s Hoda Kotb on Tuesday. “The next Olympics is on home turf, so you just never know.”
In her TikTok video, Biles also praised her therapist for helping her maintain mental toughness.
“I never thought I was going to be competing again because that’s how terrified I was of gymnastics and twisting, so there was a lot of trauma there,” she explained, “so I’ve had to put in a lot of work.”
Biles then added, “But shoutout to my therapist and shoutout to therapy.”
