“We’re all going to die!” – When Simone Biles opened up to her coach about attending a training camp at Karolyi Ranch ahead of Olympics
Simone Biles once opened up about the intense upcoming training camp before the 2016 Rio Olympics, which she anticipated to be extremely tough. She started training under Martha Karolyi after the influential coach invited the gymnast to train at the Karolyi Ranch in New Waverly, Texas when she was 13.
Karolyi served in the USA women’s gymnastics team for 15 years. She shaped the careers of multiple American gymnasts along with her husband Bela Karolyi. In her autobiography Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance, published in 2016, she reflected on the challenging 10-day training camp at the Ranch ahead of the Rio Games.
As Biles drove to the ranch with her coach Aimee, who was selected as the coaching staff with the 2016 Rio team, she expressed her nervousness about the upcoming rigorous training schedule.
“We all knew that the ten-day training camp we were about to attend would be beyond hard. “This just might be the toughest two weeks of my life,” I said to Aimee the next day,” Biles wrote.
“I was a little scared, if you want to know the truth. Five days at the ranch usually wore me out, and now we were facing ten days straight, after which we’d fly directly to Brazil without going back home. ‘Aimee, we’re all going to die!’ I joked as the training center came into view. I clutched my throat for dramatic effect. ‘Save us, please!’ ‘Yes, you will die,’ my coach agreed, laughing. ‘And all of your hair will fall out too.’
Simone Biles, alongside Gabby Douglas, Lauren Hernandez, Madison Kocian, and Alexandra Raisman represented the American team at the 2016 Games. In her autobiography, Biles explained that the team chose the name “The Final Five” to honor coach Martha Karolyi, who was leading the last American Olympic team at the age of 73.
“We finally settled on the Final Five,” Biles wrote. “The main reason we chose our name was to pay tribute to Martha Karolyi. She’d be retiring at the end of the season, which meant the five of us would be the last team she mentored in her legendary career.”
Biles added: “We aimed to take home gold, and we thought “the Final Five” would sound better if we had already won the biggest medal of our careers. It would be our way of thanking Martha.”
Simone Biles and the other team members clinched a gold medal in the event, paying a perfect tribute to Karolyi for her mentorship.
