TOKYO — Simone Biles had already given up on the idea of opening the Olympic team competition with a Yurchenko double pike, the kind of eye-popping, high-scoring, highlight-reel entrance that intimidates opponents, entices sponsors and wins golds.
She didn’t have it. Not tonight. She knew that much. She was in her head. Deep, she said.
“Demons,” she calls them. They seep in and make her question everything. They take the joy of what she loves more than anything, that she’d loved since she was a bouncy 3-year-old jumping off her living room couch, and make them about something else.