Simone Biles tweaks left ankle at qualifying, but keeps competing

PARIS — Simone Biles didn’t back off, despite an apparent ankle injury during Olympic gymnastics qualifying on Sunday.
Biles opened with a spectacular balance beam routine (14.733), but gave everyone a scare a few minutes later, appearing to tweak her left ankle during warmups on floor exercise. She briefly left the floor with Dr. Marcia Faustin, the U.S. team doctor, and got her ankle heavily taped when she returned.
But if Biles was hurting, it didn’t affect her gymnastics. She delivered the highest-scoring routine on floor exercise (14.600), did her signature Yurchenko double pike (15.8), a vault so difficult few men even do it, and finished with only a slight mistake on uneven bars, where she wobbled briefly on a handstand. When she finished bars, she went over to salute a crowd of U.S. fans, smiling and waving.
“Yeah,” Biles quipped after her score, a 14.433, posted. “That’s good.”
Then she flashed a big grin.
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After floor warmups, Biles briefly left the floor briefly with Dr. Marcia Faustin, the U.S. gymnastics team doctor, after tweaking her left ankle. She returned several minutes later and took a seat on the sidelines. Another member of the medical team came and wrapped the ankle tightly. Biles got up and walked around, as if testing it.
When she took the floor, her face was grim. Still, Biles opened with the triple-twisting, double somersault, better known as the Biles II. It’s both incredibly difficult and demands a lot of every part of her leg.
She took a few steps out of bounds on the landing, but that is not unusual. She did the same at meets earlier this summer. The only noticeable difference in her routine was that she took out a stag leap at the end of the Biles I.
Still, Biles looked somber as she finished the routine. She walked gingerly off the mat and took a seat on the steps at the edge of the podium. Cecile Landi, one of her coaches, came and asked her if she was OK, and Biles nodded. She continued to sit there until Laurent Landi, Cecile Landi’s husband and Biles’ other coach, came to her. He put his arm around her and she nodded as she whispered in her ear.
Finally, Biles got up and joined her teammates.
Biles spotted her parents when the Americans moved to vault, their next event, and she could be seen smiling and laughing again. After landing one practice vault, she motioned to teammates and then jokingly crawled partway toward the runway. Then she got up and hopped on her right leg. “I’m going to need a wheelchair,” she said, according to the Peacock broadcast, though she appeared to be making light of the apparent ankle injury. 
That there’s even a question of Biles’ ability to compete is crushing after her experience at the Tokyo Games. Biles withdrew after one event in the team final with a case of “the twisties,” which caused her to lose her sense of where she was in the air. Unwilling to risk her physical safety, Biles also withdrew from the all-around, vault, uneven bars and floor exercise finals.
She returned for the balance beam final, winning a bronze medal with a reworked routine. But Biles returned home, questioning whether she’d ever be able to do gymnastics again, uncertain she could trust herself. Or her gymnastics. But she has put in work through therapy and set boundaries to reduce the anxiety that contributed to the twisties. Since she returned last year, she’s been better than ever. She came to Paris looking for redemption and, so long as she’s able to compete, is certain to get it in the form of several more gold medals.