Simone vs. Herself is not just a new show on Facebook Watch—it’s a declaration of fact. Simone Biles, the elite gymnast who is constantly breaking boundaries such as becoming the first woman to ever land a Yurchenko Double Pike, winning more national women all-around titles than any other American woman...hell, she has an array of flips named after her. Naturally, Biles automatically qualified for the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, representing the USA.
She is it. However, she is also a Black woman doing all of this. Y’all know what that means.
In the fifth episode of Simone vs. Herself released on Tuesday, Biles discussed her previous battles with the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) to reward her the points she deserves—something that she has since made peace with as she is now continuing to be a badass just for herself.
“I’m kind of breaking boundaries,” she said. “And they’re like ‘Well, wait a minute! We need to change this real quick. What can we do?’”
“So they devalue skills,” she added. “It is what it is.”
“I remember my coach telling me, ‘You can’t do anything wrong at this point. Go out there and make a name for yourself. You have nothing to lose,” Biles recalled in the trailer promoting the show, where she’s taken control of her narrative, including opening up about her survivor’s story.
“There’s a defiance in everything that she does,” The Atlantic’s Jemele Hill notes in the fifth episode. “And it’s not a petulant defiance; it’s her realizing her worth. She’s come to realize she is the sport right now, and I think it’s that sense of empowerment that has only emboldened her.”
This is actually a perfect time to recirculate the following clip where she specifically spoke on the 2019 world championship valuation of her balance-beam dismount.
“I’m almost 99.9% sure if any other athlete were to do it besides me, they would give it correct credit. But since I’m already way ahead of everybody, they want to pull it back,” Biles said in the clip.
“Sometimes they don’t think it’s fair that I win all the time,” ending the moment with the perfect “Girl, I don’t know what to tell you” facial expression.
And that’s on Yurchenko double pike period.