This time a year ago, the Paris 2024 Olympic Games was not a realistic goal for gymnastics great Simone Biles.
An official practice ahead of the 2023 US Classic gymnastics competition in August was the first event the seven-time Olympic medallist attended since the Tokyo Games in 2021, where she had pulled out of the women's team final and four subsequent individual finals to prioritise her health.
She has gone on to compete in three events since, including the 2023 US Championships in late August where she won an unprecedented eighth all-around crown. While fans have witnessed the same elite execution on Biles' part, getting her mental preparation has been anything but easy.
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"I didn't know if I was ever going to be able to compete again because there were multiple times this year where I was in the gym and I was like, 'I'm actually terrified of this full-in, like I'm not doing it again, never going to do it'," Biles told Olympics.com.
"And then I was like, 'You know what? I'm just going to come back another day, another day'."
Biles, the face of the US Olympic movement going into Tokyo, is taking a more low-profile approach to the sport this time around. She has only begrudgingly mentioned her goal is to make it to Paris 2024, choosing instead to focus on the process and take things one event at a time.
The American star headlines the five-woman US team that will compete at the 2023 world championships in Belgium during the first week of October. Biles' appearance will be her sixth at the event, the most ever by an American woman.
The meet will be held in Antwerp, where Biles won the first of her five world all-around titles as a 16-year-old prodigy. A full decade later, she will return looking to become the most decorated gymnast in history.
"The girls on the team really helped me with that because they were like, 'No, Simone, just come in. Come on'. And I'm like, 'OK, you're right. I can't give up now because then I'll forever be afraid of it'," Biles explained.
"I, at least, knew that if I were to walk away from the sport, I could come in the gym and at least do a full-in, a double-double, or triple-double and I'd be good," explained Biles. "I feel like right now, if I walk away, I know that I can do that, so that helps me."
Biles has seven Olympic medals (including the 2016 Olympic title) and 25 world championship medals, 19 of them gold. Her 32 combined medals is tied with Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union for the most ever at the sport's two signature events.
The newlywed 26-year-old Biles will be heavily favoured to have the record all to herself by the end of the meet.
She has dominated in her comeback following a two-year break after her appearance in the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics was plagued by a bout with a mental block known as " the twisties".
"We've just been trailing along the journey and seeing what's to come, which is very rare for us because usually we have a set plan like… we do my short-term and my long-term goals, but this year, I think I'm even shocked by myself doing Classics, [US] Championships, now, here, world trials," Biles said.
"I think it's just a bunch of surprises and I kind of like it because I have expectations, but I won't be let down if I don't achieve something."
Biles said she's slowly building towards an appearance in Paris next year.
"I think mostly it was [thinking about] in 10 years, whenever I look back, do I want to have any regrets? Do I want to be watching say Worlds or Paris on the TV and be like, 'Wow, if I would have just gone into the gym and just put a little effort in…' Because I will always get to do whatever I want to do after my career is over," she added.
"But I won't be able to do my career forever."
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