Simone Biles Explains the Twisties — and How She Came Back for the Paris Olympics

The iconic gymnast revisits her painful Tokyo Olympics experience in the Netflix documentary "Simone Biles Rising"

It began when Simone Biles “got lost” in the air during her warmup vault at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.

“As soon as I did it, I was like, ‘You gotta be s----ing me.’ Like, right now, really right now, we’re gonna do this?” Biles, 27, recalls in the first episode of the documentary, Simone Biles Rising, which is now streaming on Netflix.

Biles’ bout with the dreaded twisties subsequently forced the legendary athlete to bow out of the team competition at the Summer Games, and subjected the seven-time Olympic medalist to a media firestorm, which forced the athlete to question herself, seek out therapy and take two years off from international competition.

But moments after the gymnast awkwardly somersaulted her landing during the warmup three years ago, those close to her knew the gravity of the situation.

Related: Simone Biles and U.S. Gymnastics Go for Gold in the Team Final: Live Updates

“I look at her face, and she pretends, ‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ “ her coach Laurent Landi says in the doc. “But when you get lost in something, no, you’re not fine.”

“I knew from that very moment it wasn’t like one time and done. You can feel it in your head,” Biles says. “I knew it wasn’t just like, ‘Oops, sorry.’ How am I supposed to tell them that this is bad, bad?”

Biles goes on to describe the consequential moment. “To me it felt silent, almost like death,” she says. “And if I could have ran out of that stadium, I would have. But I was like keep it cool, calm, collected, don’t freak anybody out. Let’s go over and be like, ‘We’re done here.’ ”

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Later, in a confessional, the athlete elaborates on the experience, as she tries to understand it herself. “Having these mental blocks in the gym recently has not been fun, it’s been scary,” she says.

“I’m getting lost on my skills. I just don’t get how It’s like I’m so prepared but I don’t know if I’m overthinking. It’s getting to the point where it’s becoming dangerous because I’m getting lost on all of my floor skills and it’s like it could happen any other time, I don’t get why it's happening any other time,” Biles continues.

She adds, “In gym, we call it the twisties. It should be a forbidden word because it sucks to have them for anybody.”

Related: Simone Biles Doc Director Says 'Super Hero' Gymnast Is Authentic and Likes to Play Practical Jokes (Exclusive)

Paris Olympic Games alternate Joscelyn Roberson describes it another way in the documentary. “Just imagine you’re getting on a rollercoaster and then you close your eyes and they change the rollercoaster and then you go,” Roberson, 18, says.

Yet as Biles has mounted her comeback — which culminates during the Summer Games on Tuesday, July 30 with women's team finals and on Thursday during the individual all-around competition — she has proven that the twisties are thankfully in behind her.

In a “Let’s Chat” Q&A on her Instagram Stories last July, the athlete gave more insight to her perspective, sharing that uneven bars have “always” been the hardest event for her to come back to after a break — and that the road to reclaiming her skills at times left her "petrified."

“It's always bars … mentally and physically but this go around BABY!!! Twisting on any event,” she wrote, adding at the time: “IYKYK.”

Biles continued, “Mainly because when the twisties happen you go right into the gym and work on it. I took over a year off and THEN came back... So I was petrified. But I’m fine. I’m twisting again. No worries. All is good.”

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