Olympics-Gymnastics-Biles leaves painful memories of Tokyo behind to win gold in Paris

By Rory Carroll

PARIS (Reuters) - Simone Biles is a different person than the one who abruptly pulled out of the Tokyo Games three years ago amid a mental health crisis, her teammates said, and it showed as she led the U.S. to the team gold medal at the Paris Olympics on Tuesday.

Standing at the end of the runway before her vault, Biles said she was not haunted by the memories of her tumultuous time in Tokyo and was soon soaring high as she executed the Cheng vault that helped lift the U.S. into a lead they would not relinquish.

"After I finished vault I was relieved because phew, there were no flashbacks or anything," Biles told an overflowing press conference.

When Biles abruptly quit the Olympic team final in Tokyo after feeling disorientated while executing her vault, her U.S. teammates had to quickly turn to Plan B and ended up with a disappointing silver.

On Tuesday, as soon as Biles had nailed her vault, she knew the Americans were destined to reassert their gymnastics supremacy on the world's biggest stage.

"As soon as I landed vault I was like, oh yeah, we're definitely going to do this."

Her teammate and close friend Jordan Chiles said she too was relieved.

"I was thinking hallelujah, no flashbacks, no nothing," Chiles said with a laugh.

From there the veteran team joyfully celebrated each other's accomplishments as they made their way around four rotations at Bercy Arena, in the end easily eclipsing silver medallists Italy by almost six points. Brazil finished with the bronze.

"It was super exciting," said an ever-smiling Biles, who was seen breaking into some dance moves with Chiles on the sidelines as they celebrated completing yet another impressive performance.

"We had fun, we enjoyed each other's time out there and just did our gymnastics."

Her withdrawal from Tokyo with the "twisties," a dangerous gymnastics condition involving a temporary loss of spatial awareness, opened a conversation on athlete mental health.

After Tokyo, Biles, 27, took a two-year break from the sport to focus on herself and has since reemerged happier, healthier and better than ever.

"I started off with therapy this morning and I told her (the therapist) I was feeling calm and ready. And that’s exactly what happened," she said.

Chiles said she was proud to witness Biles' growth.

"You can definitely tell that she's a different person from Tokyo than she is now," said Chiles.

"I always love to say I train with the GOAT of all GOATs. She's always going to be in my heart no matter what."

(Reporting by Rory Carroll in Paris, editing by Pritha Sarkar)