PARIS — Simone Biles would like to issue a formal apology.
Aly Raisman, who competed in her second Olympics at 22 years old in 2016 when Biles was a 19-year-old Olympic rookie, was not a grandma. It took only going to a third Olympics trip at 27 years old for Biles to admit it.
“I feel like I’m way older [than she was,]” Biles joked last month at the U.S. Olympic trials.
Being awake at 11 p.m. is now way past her bedtime. She has to apply tape to her aching joints when she comes to the gym. The seven-time Olympic medalist is surely not the “hamster on a wheel” she was when she burst onto the Olympic scene in 2016.
She’s better.
The 30-time world medalist is redefining the limits of gymnastics and leading a charge to reclaim the sport for more mature female athletes. With four of five gymnasts in their 20s, the U.S. team that will compete this week in Paris — beginning with Sunday’s qualifying at Bercy Arena — is the nation’s oldest since 1952.
“I think we’re all showing that there can be longevity to your career,” said 24-year-old Jade Carey, the reigning Olympic floor champion. “As long as we’re feeling good and happy and healthy, you might as well keep going as long as you want.”
Relaxed name, image and likeness rules allowed marketable Olympic gymnasts to maintain their NCAA eligibility and help extend gymnastics careers. Carey is one of three U.S. gymnasts back at the Games after competing in college, along with Auburn’s Suni Lee, 21, who was the first Olympic all-around champion to compete at the NCAA level. UCLA’s Jordan Chiles won two individual NCAA titles before taking a season off to prepare for the Olympics. Carey finished second in all-around at the NCAA championships for Oregon State in April.
College gymnastics used to be considered a “retirement community” for elite gymnasts, said Gina Pongetti, a physical therapist who has worked with elite, national team and collegiate gymnasts for more than 20 years. Not anymore.
UCLA coach Janelle McDonald has noticed an uptick in the number of top recruits expressing interest in returning to elite gymnastics during or after their collegiate careers. Chiles and Carey credited the NCAA atmosphere with helping prepare them for a second Olympic run.
“Being a college athlete, knowing we competed every single weekend, I think helped with the confidence,” Chiles, 23, said.
Seeing the confidence Chiles and UCLA teammate Emma Malabuyo earned in college show up during their dual Olympic runs — Malabuyo is representing the Philippines — made it clear to UCLA assistant coach BJ Das that pursuing a college career always could have been helpful to elite gymnasts. That is, if the culture was ever ready to accept them.
“The old era wanted these little tiny girls to do gymnastics,” said Das, a former gymnast at Washington whose career ended with an Achilles injury, “not knowing that if you’re strong and you’re healthy, you can accomplish just as much in your gymnastics as when you’re a prepubescent teenager.”
Changes to a woman’s body during puberty can drastically affect her gymnastics, said Aimee Diaz, associate professor of clinical physical therapy at USC. A growth spurt, a widening pelvis or increased body fat can all decrease a woman’s body control in the short term. But athletes can return to their top form with time.
“I don’t think we ever gave that to them back then,” Diaz said.
The sport’s shifting culture that centers athletes has been the biggest force allowing U.S. female gymnasts to age gracefully in the sport. Athletes are encouraged to work with coaches to tweak practice assignments to work around nagging injuries while still pushing athletes forward.
Maybe it means tumbling onto a soft mat instead of the floor, Pongetti said. Or just focusing on conditioning for one session. With advancements in treatment and technology, athletes and coaches can also monitor their bodies in unprecedented ways, Diaz said, and know when to ask for a break.
Alicia Sacramone Quinn couldn’t imagine a world in which she arrived at the gym and told former national team director Marta Karoyli she couldn’t complete the full assignment. Now in a leadership position of an organization rehabilitating its image following the Larry Nassar sexual abuse scandal, the U.S. gymnastics strategic lead welcomes all feedback from athletes.
“It’s nice for us because we know where they stand,” Sacramone Quinn said. “I think it’s great for them because we’re going to respect their knowledge of their own bodies and what they’re capable of doing.”
Biles is still redefining what she can do. She has submitted another original element to the international governing body of gymnastics that could soon become her sixth eponymous skill and her first on the uneven bars. Seeing Biles compete her most recent signature skill — a double-flipping vault no other woman has attempted in competition — still leaves Chellsie Memmel, the U.S. gymnastics technical lead, wondering simply “how?”
To any questions, Biles responds with a simple chuckle.
“I use the phrase ‘aging like fine wine,’” Biles said.
