When the first part of Simone Biles’ Netflix docuseries aired last month, its ending was still unwritten. Now, the script is in.
“Simone Biles: Rising” Part 2, premiering Oct. 25 on Netflix, will follow the most decorated gymnast of all time to the 2024 Paris Games, where her storied comeback culminated in Olympic gold, Netflix announced Wednesday.
Netflix and Biles jointly promoted the docuseries’ final two episodes in a Wednesday Instagram reel spoofing the streaming platform’s show “Emily in Paris.” In the 20-second clip, the G.O.A.T. cheekily sips from a Champagne flute — Eiffel Tower in the background — and snacks on French pastries, quipping, “Ever since I moved to Paris, my life has been chaotic and dramatic and complicated.”
Although the teaser was inspired by fiction, Biles’ sentiment holds truth.
The first installment of “Simone Biles: Rising,” released July 17, pulled back the curtain on Biles’ widely criticized withdrawal from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic) after an episode of “the twisties” — a dangerous phenomenon in which gymnasts lose their perception of their body mid-air — led to an infamous botched vault routine.
People called her a “quitter” who had nothing more than an off day, Biles said in the docuseries. But at her level, where much of the sport involves “trying not to die,” pushing through wasn’t an option.
“Your body can only function for so long before your fuses blow out,” she said, adding that she now sees her struggles in Tokyo as a “trauma response.” (Biles is among the hundreds of athletes who survived sexual abuse by Larry Nassar, the former team doctor of the national gymnastics team.)
When it came to any traumatic experience, Biles said she told herself to “shove it down, wait until my career’s done, [then] go fix it.” Inevitably, she continued, that caught up to her.
After Tokyo, she resolved to take time off to address her mental health — the first steps on a winding road to recovery.
“I knew it would be a long journey. But to me, I wasn’t done,” Biles said. “I get to write my own ending.”
In Paris, at 27, Biles became the oldest American woman to compete in Olympic gymnastics in 72 years. She left the Games with three gold medals and one silver — and reclaimed the all-around title.
She seemed to celebrate her triumph Thursday, sharing on her Instagram story that she’d upgraded her older black Mercedes G-wagon to a shiny white model.
“Out with the old,” she captioned a photo of her old wheels, writing “In with the NEW” over the image of her new car.
