In midair, soaring over a vault, Simone Biles realized she had lost her way.
She came into the Olympics as the United States’ star, expected to bring home gold medals and to fulfill the obligations of a global celebrity. The weight of her past success loomed over her. Fans expected her to be spectacular and perfect, even here at the Tokyo Games in a pandemic and without spectators.
And she was feeling far from perfect. On Tuesday, she said she began "fighting all of those demons” and couldn’t hold them back. In this, perhaps her final Olympics after having won four golds at the 2016 Games, she wondered why she was even here.
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