“Honoring a Racing Icon: Bubba Shobert’s Memorial Ceremony and Legacy Celebration”

“Honoring a Racing Icon: Bubba Shobert’s Memorial Ceremony and Legacy Celebration

watched Simone Biles: Rising only to marvel at what the most decorated gymnast in history can do, that would be a couple of hours well spent. It is astonishing to see her moving through the air, rapidly contorting her body with such astounding motion that gymnastics is still having to adjust its parameters to accommodate her abilities. Moves have been named after Biles, some of which have been completed only by her.

But the Biles story is much more dramatic than her legendary physical prowess. This four-part documentary series, the first half of which arrives just before she returns to the Olympic stage in Paris, has more twists than even her most intricate routines.

It has been almost four years since Biles shocked the sporting world by withdrawing from the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, partway through the competition. She had been the face of the games, expected to break records, take multiple golds and cement her status as the greatest of all time. But Tokyo, which took place amid the restrictions and isolation of the Covid pandemic, did not go to plan.

“Your body can only function for so long before your fuses blow out,” says Biles today. She came down with a bad case of “the twisties”, in which gymnasts lose their sense of place and become disoriented, mid-air. “Most of the time, it’s unrelated to gymnastics,” notes one of her coaches, Laurent Landi, drily.

Simone Biles: Rising – the series is named after a tattoo on Biles’ collarbone, which is taken from Maya Angelou – balances a more general portrait of her life and career with questions about the demands of elite sport, particularly in a world of constant inexpert scrutiny via soci