It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Exam season took up so much of my time… but nevertheless, I’m back!
I’ve been following the sport of gymnastics for a long time. I started doing the sport when I was seven but didn’t watch it until later. When I was younger I would watch the 2012 Olympic finals recorded on YouTube. As I got older, I learned more and more about the sport. I watched the Rio 2016 Olympics live, and I loved it, getting to know all the names of famous gymnasts, figuring out who my favourites were, having fun listening to floor music, and lots more.
Now, at 15, I decided to read two memoirs from American gymnasts that took to the international stage and emerged victorious. Today I will be talking about two gymnast’s memoirs: Simone Biles’ Courage To Soar and Lauren “Laurie” Hernandez’ I Got This.
Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance (Simone Biles)
Anyone in gymnastics has heard of Simone. She is truly the GOAT (Greatest Of All Time), with so many difficult eponymous skills under her belt. Eponymous means that the skill was named after her (for example: The Biles). A skill gets named after a gymnast if the gymnast is the first one to compete said skill in international competition.
I got the pleasure to read about her experience growing up, going to the gym, and learning with her coaches before she turned to elite gymnastics.
Of course being an elite gymnast isn’t easy, and there is a lot of mental pressure when you’re competing, whether on a national or international stage.
Simone grew up in Spring, Texas with her grandparents, and is of Belizean descent. Her parents were alcoholics and drug addicts, and couldn’t care for her or her siblings. She had a younger sister Adria, two older brothers named Ron and Adam, and an older sister Ashley. After bouncing between foster homes for a few years, she and her siblings were eventually adopted by their grandparents, Ron and Nellie Biles.
But she found a love for gymnastics and continued with it ever since, leading her eventually to be the GOAT that she is now.
She was in many competitions, from the 2013 Worlds all the way until the 2021 Olympics, however the memoir ends after the Rio 2016 Olympics, or shortly after. The mental pressure on a gymnast dubbed the GOAT is incredible, and hard to imagine. But I digress.
Simone talks a lot about her setbacks as she was starting out – missing out on a Worlds team spot, not getting onto podiums, etc – but she also talks about her determination to get to the Olympics after that. You can really feel her excitement and pride when she makes the Olympic team as well as when she is doing her medal-winning routines.
Simone has won a medal in almost every event, in every competition that year and many years since. She is the 2016 Team, All-Around, Floor, and Vault Gold medalist, Beam Bronze medallist. She is the most medalled gymnast of all time.
After the Olympics she was on Dancing With The Stars, finishing fourth.
It’s about here where the memoir ends, but since 2016, she came back to gymnastics for the 2017 Worlds and has continued with the sport ever since. After the 2021 Olympics where she withdrew from almost all finals except for the beam final due to mental health issues and injury, and since then she has become a strong advocate for mental health.
I Got This: To Gold And Beyond (Laurie Hernandez)
Laurie, on the other hand, grew up in New Jersey, with her three older siblings, and lived with both her parents. She had a pretty normal childhood, and started gymnastics after ditching ballet at the age of five.
She is of Puerto Rican descent and is the second US-born Latina to make it to the international stage on the US women’s gymnastics team.
She suffered some injuries throughout her professional career, but nonetheless continued to improve her skills until she finally made it to the Olympic Team. She and Simone, as well as Alexandra “Aly” Raisman, Gabrielle “Gabby” Douglas, and Madison “Madi” Kocian won gold in Rio 2016 in the Team Final, but Laurie also won silver on beam. Her very expressive performance and facial expressions got her the nickname of the ‘Human Emoji’ that year.
Laurie was also on Dancing with the Stars after the Olympics, but came back to training in 2019 before competing at the Winter Cup in 2021.
Laurie is now retired as of June 6th, 2021, but is sometimes a commentator for some American or international competitions.
Similarities and other thoughts
One thing that I found really cool about reading both of these memoirs is that their stories overlap, specifically when Laurie and Simone are talking about the Rio 2016 Olympics.
They were together at the same time and place the majority of the time, but they also had different voices and perspectives, which was pretty clearly shown in each of their respective memoirs.
I definitely recommend this, it’s very inspirational for whoever you are, in whatever stage of life. Whatever goals you have, if you need to push through adversity of any kind, then these are must-reads. If necessary, look up the trigger warnings, but none of the memoirs are graphic in any way.
They also use a lot of gymnastics terminology, but there is typically an explanation of what the term means, or a gymnastics glossary in the end.
I will leave you, lovely readers, with this final thought. Like Simone and Laurie tell us, even if you have responsibilities and a career that depends on you, your mental and physical health are more important than that. Take breaks, take care of yourself.
Thanks for reading!
Do you follow any sports? Do you read memoirs? Do any of these memoirs sound interesting to you? Let me know in the comments below, and subscribe (if you feel so inclined!)
Life is a story. How will you write yours?
Until next time,
Catherine Khaperska
P.S. If you’ve read this far, thanks! A big, big surprise is coming in the next few weeks, and I can’t wait for you all to learn about it!
Catherine Khaperska 