Ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, where gymnast Simone Biles is set to compete, the two-part Netflix documentary “Simone Biles Rising” focuses on a pivotal event in her athletic career: Pulling out of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics because of the twisties, a term of art describing the disorientation a gymnast experiences mid-maneuver when they lose their sense of place in the air.

Here’s how her coach Laurent Landi puts it: “She could not sync her body and her mind together to compete. Something broke.” The only way to cure the twisties, he says, is to take time off and try to understand why it’s happening. “And most of the time, it’s unrelated to gymnastics.”

The subtext to all of this is Larry Nassar, the team doctor who was charged with sexually assaulting gymnasts. Biles was among the survivors, and she speculates that a delayed trauma response to her own assault and Nassar’s conviction ultimately impacted her performance in Tokyo. “I didn’t get the proper care before because I just thought I was OK,” she says. “But your mind and your body are actually the first ones to say, ‘Actually, no.’”

The first two parts of the docuseries are open-hearted and a straightforward conversation with Biles about her experience at the 2020 Olympics (which took place in 2021, delayed due to the pandemic) and her life in the years since. Director Katie Walsh will continue to follow Biles in Paris for two forthcoming episodes; Netflix has not said when those will premiere.

Gymnast Simone Biles seen in the documentary “Simone Biles Rising.” (Netflix)

Tom Brady and Michael Strahan’s sports media production company Religion of Sports is one of the producers here, along with the Olympic Channel, which is operated by the International Olympic Committee. That suggests a certain amount of careful curation and image-making is at play and the first 15 minutes or so have the jumpy, frenetic pacing of a teaser. But once it settles down and just lets Biles talk, “Simone Biles Rising” proves to be engrossing. It helps that Biles is extremely likable and comfortable in front of the camera. To its credit, the documentary doesn’t have the pushy approach you typically see in the pre-produced segments that have long been part of NBC’s Olympic coverage.

Will a dedicated Netflix camera crew following Biles at the Paris Games increase the intensity she’s under? Or will it feel indistinguishable from all the other media coverage she’ll be facing? Maybe Walsh & Co. will be a safe space, since they’ve already established a rapport. (Walsh previously worked on the Facebook series “Simone Biles vs. Herself,” which followed her during the last Olympics.) Either way, modern athletes are expected to not only be the best in their sport, but media savvy as well. It’s a lot to shoulder. That said, Biles is an adult. She’s remarkably open. And she’s OK’d this kind of documentary twice now. She knows what’s involved. She’s such an exciting athlete to watch, but often that obscures her human frailties and again and again, she’s making choices that underscore this complexity as part of her public image. She didn’t, for example, stop filming the Facebook series when everything fell apart in Tokyo and the last thing she probably wanted was a camera in her face.

She’s also learned to set boundaries for herself around social media to manage her anxieties, whether limiting comments or her own usage of the apps. Reading one nasty post in the wake of her decision in Tokyo, an ironic smile crosses her face, reflecting on the non-existent expertise of the person passing judgment: “Sitting on your couch, watching me from home. OK.” The subtext is blunt: You try doing anything close to what I’ve accomplished — while risking serious injury — and then we’ll talk.

The documentary doesn’t utter the word “misogynoir,” but a combination of racism and sexism was absolutely driving the harsh responses Biles weathered after pulling out of the Tokyo Games. Dominique Dawes was part of the “Magnificent Seven” 1996 Olympic team and she talks here about what it means to be one of the few Black gymnasts on a team: “My body type was not what (the judges) embraced. My hair wasn’t what they were looking for … I knew that who I was was automatically a deduction.”

Dawes also talks about the extreme expectations placed on elite gymnasts. Her teammate Kerri Strug famously helped the U.S. win gold in 1996 after doing a vault on an injured ankle: “We all were injured, we all were beat down and battered,” Dawes remembers. “She’s standing at the end of the vault runway, visibly in physical pain and emotional pain as well. And her coaches are telling her, ‘You can do it.’ That would be nerve-wracking as an adult (and) these are young teenagers that have given up their whole childhood and there are nearly 40,000 people screaming for her to go because it’s for your country.” Looking back, she says, “That was not right.”

We see a montage of Olympic footage from decades past of gymnasts hurting themselves. One crashes her face into the balance beam after a backflip, another falls on her head after a vault. “In the ’80s and ’90s, our ideas about what was normal within the sport were a bit warped. But there was a deep belief that this was the way to achieve success,” says Dr. Onnie Willis Rogers, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University and a former gymnast who is interviewed here as well.

In some of her sit-down interviews, Biles is wearing a nameplate necklace that reads “Owens” — her married name. She and NFL player Jonathan Owens wed last year, and despite his own athletic career, he might be more famous for a podcast appearance in which he referred to himself as the “catch” in their relationship. The backlash from fans was swift, but Biles brushed it off. Being married means her life isn’t just focused on the gym. That necklace might be nothing more than a piece of jewelry she wears every day. Or it might be a subtle but more pointed message she’s getting across.

At 27, Biles is competing again because she can — she is the most decorated gymnast in history and she’s still a top performer — and also because she wants to go out on her own terms. But she doesn’t appear consumed with the idea that the 2024 Olympics are some kind of redemption story.

Despite the documentary’s title, she doesn’t talk about herself in such self-dramatic terms — of a phoenix rising from the ashes. The series is smart to follow suit, simply allowing her to take us through what was going through her mind both during and after Tokyo, and allowing us into her headspace — and her vulnerabilities — in the lead-up to Paris.

“Simone Biles Rising” — 3 stars (out of 4)

Where to watch: Netflix

Nina Metz is a Tribune critic.

When it comes to veteran quarterback Sam Darnold, respected quarterback guru Jordan Palmer isn’t shy about his biases. They have worked together for much of the past decade, meaning Palmer has seen Darnold go from lightly recruited teenager to college football supernova to high draft pick whose NFL career was seemingly on life support.

All the while, Palmer has never lost his belief in Darnold.

“I’ve been watching him for a while,” Palmer said this spring in a 10-minute film breakdown he posted on his personal YouTube account. “I just don’t see a big difference between what I’ve seen Sam do and what some of the best players in the league are doing. There are also a lot of things where I go, ‘Oh I think Sam is actually better than him at that.’ We just haven’t seen it in a good setting yet.”

That’s precisely why those who have seen Darnold at the peak of his powers in the past wholeheartedly believe he can turn things around with the Vikings. His struggles with the New York Jets and Carolina Panthers don’t even begin to tell the story of how talented Darnold is at his core.

The anecdotes are abundant.

Ask longtime San Clemente High School football coach Jaime Ortiz about Darnold and he’ll reminisce about how ridiculously talented he was as a kid growing up in Southern California.

Ask former USC football coach Clay Helton about Darnold and he’ll rave about his leadership skills before launching into a soliloquy about his otherworldly performance in the Rose Bowl.

Ask current Vikings quarterbacks coach Josh McCown about Darnold and he’ll gush about the friendship they built long ago and how that could help now that they have been reunited in Minnesota.

Now, as Darnold reports for training camp this week at TCO Performance Center in Eagan for his first season with the Vikings, the pieces are in place for him to rewrite the narrative. Though rookie quarterback J.J. McCarthy is waiting in the wings to assume the throne after being selected by the Vikings with the No. 10 pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, Darnold is the starter at the moment, and he doesn’t plan on giving up the job anytime soon.

“I’m excited to see what happens,” Palmer said. “When I look at the list of things that a guy has to have to be great at this position in the league, and then I look at the list of things that Sam can do, those lists look the same to me.”

‘He was going to be something special’

To truly understand Darnold, it’s important to go back to his roots. He grew up in San Clemente, a coastal city located between Los Angeles and San Diego, and while his parents Mike and Chris encouraged him play multiple sports, eventually football started to take precedence.

His arm talent was undeniable from an early age.

“The first time I saw him, he was a 6-year-old kid in our youth camp,” Ortiz said. “You could definitely tell he was going to be something special.”

That proved to be true for Darnold every step of the way.

He was regularly the best player on the field as a freshman in high school regardless of the competition. He made varsity as a sophomore and made an immediate impact despite playing out of position, once catching a slant for a touchdown, then on the very next series intercepting a pass and returning it for a touchdown. He got injured as a junior and his team lost every game without him under center. He returned as a senior, leading San Clemente to a 12-2 record, earning league MVP honors in the process.

There’s a particular game that stands out for Ortiz when thinking back on Darnold’s meteoric rise in the early years. After getting a college commitment from Darnold in the summer to play for Southern Cal, Helton came out to watch him play in the fall. The pressure was on for the matchup between San Clemente and Atascadero.

“You know how sometimes a recruiter comes out and a player tenses up and tries to do too much?” Ortiz said. “Not Sam. He was like 14 for 14 in the first half for close to 300 yards with 4 touchdowns before we ended up taking him out. He balled out that game because that’s what he does.”

‘That’s what a first-round quarterback looks like’

Never mind that former USC head coach Steve Sarkisian had already received a commitment from highly touted quarterback Ricky Town. Nothing was going to stop Helton from taking a look at Darnold.

“I was the offensive coordinator at the time and I asked (Sarkisian) if we could bring him in to evaluate him because I thought he was really special,” Helton said. “He came in and blew all of us away. I remember (Sarkisian) said, ‘That’s what a first-round quarterback looks like.’ We ended up taking a commitment from him, too, and thank goodness we did.”

It wasn’t long after Darnold arrived on campus that he put himself in the conversation to be the starter. Ultimately, the decision came down to experience, and incumbent quarterback Max Browne got the nod. A slow start spurred action, however, and Darnold ended up replacing Browne for a matchup between USC and Utah.

“We thought he was ready and we needed to give him a chance,” Helton said. “He went out there and played brilliantly in a hostile environment, and we lost a heartbreaker.”

In the first start of his collegiate career, Darnold completed 18 of 26 passes for 253 yards, putting USC in position to win the game before Utah scored with 16 seconds left.

“We were 1-3 at that point, and being 1-3 at USC is not very fun,” Helton said. “I remember coming out of that game, though, and being like, ‘Oh, my gosh.’ I was so positive I knew we had something special in Sam. I told the rest of the coaching staff that there wasn’t a game left on the schedule that I didn’t think we could win with him at the helm.”

Sure enough, they ran the table, and Darnold emerged as a household name. He saved his best for last during his breakout season, leading USC to a thrilling 52-49 win over Penn State in the Rose Bowl, completing 33 of 53 passes for 453 yards and 5 touchdowns.

There is a moment from late in that game that still sticks with Helton nearly a decade later. After getting the ball back with 1 minute, 59 seconds left, Helton knew if USC went down and scored a touchdown, he was going to consider going for the win with a 2-point conversion rather than kick the extra point to tie.

“I said, ‘Hey Sam, if we score and it’s late enough, look at me, and I’ll say what we’re going to do,’” Helton recalled. “He goes out and leads us down the field and makes a ridiculous throw for a touchdown. Everybody else is going crazy around him and there’s this 18-year-old kid and the first thing he does is look at me. It blew me away. Just that poise he had.”

That’s what Helton thinks about whenever he’s asked about Darnold. He truly believes that he could still become a star, and he thinks the Vikings could help him reach his full potential.

“I’m so excited to watch him go shock the world,” Helton said. “I really am.”

‘He still has his best football in front of him’

As somebody who tends to keep his cards close to his chest, Vikings head coach Kevin O’Connell couldn’t bluff his way out of the question in the spring. Asked who the starting quarterback was going to be heading into the summer, O’Connell announced that Darnold would be atop the depth chart when training camp rolled around.

“I would say Sam would be the guy I would look to based upon the spring he’s had and really where he’s at in his quarterback journey,” O’Connell said. “He’s been able to come in and really hit the ground running and really kind of take advantage of a competitive situation.”

This type of opportunity has been a long time coming for Darnold.

He was selected by the Jets with the No. 3 pick in the 2018 NFL Draft and immediately got thrown into the fire with little help around him. His confidence took a major hit and he was written off as a bust early in his NFL career. He got a fresh start via a trade to the Panthers and he parlayed that into a contract with the San Francisco 49ers, where he spent last year as the backup.

Now, after signing a 1-year, $10 million contract with the Vikings as a free agent, Darnold is getting what will likely be his final chance.

“We all sometimes have our greatest growth in moments of failure,” O’Connell said. “The level of that failure at this position tends to be magnified because it’s for all to see and wins or losses tend to get put on that player regardless of circumstance around them.”

The Vikings lineup will be by far the most talent Darnold has had around him. All that’s left for him to do is prove himself.

“I’ve always been a fan of Sam from the time he came out,” O’Connell said. “I think he still has his best football out in front of him.”

He’s not alone in that assessment.

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I always make fried rice before leaving on a vacation, because it’s the perfect way to use up the motley crew of forgotten vegetables in my produce drawer — you know, that half of a head of broccoli hanging on for dear life, the floppy celery stalk, the slightly browning quarter of a cabbage, that limp, shriveled carrot… Just empty your produce drawer into a skillet with some rice, garlic, tofu and soy sauce, and you have yourself a delicious, healthy, satisfying send-off.

You can truly use whatever vegetables you have, following the usual rule of thumb of adding them to the wok in order of hardest to softest (i.e. carrots and broccoli stems first, bok choy stems and cabbage next, bok choy leaves or peas last).

This dish travels well, too, so pack up leftovers for your trip, and you can avoid airport fare or road trip fast food altogether.

Pre-Vacation Fried Rice

Serves 4

INGREDIENTS

3 tablespoons neutral oil, such as sunflower or grapeseed

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 tablespoons minced fresh ginger

4 cups diced mixed vegetables (cabbage, green onion, carrot, broccoli, celery, bok choy, peas, or whatever you have on hand)

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 package firm tofu, drained

4 cups cooked rice (I like to use brown jasmine)

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1 tablespoon mirin (or 1 teaspoon agave syrup or honey)

Salt to taste

Optional toppings:

Hot sauce, such as sambal oelek or Sriracha

Furikake (toasted sesame seeds and seaweed)

Sliced green onion

DIRECTIONS

Heat the oil in a large skillet or wok over medium heat. Add the garlic and ginger and stir-fry for 1 minute until fragrant.

Turn up the heat to medium-high and add the chopped vegetables, adding the hardest vegetables first to stir-fry for a few minutes and then gradually adding the softer vegetables and greens. Stir-fry for 3 to 5 minutes or until vegetables are tender.

Empty the contents of the skillet into a serving dish and return the empty skillet to the stove. Heat the sesame oil over medium heat. Use your hands to crumble the tofu into the skillet, breaking up any larger chunks with a spatula or spoon. Stir-fry the tofu for 5 to 7 minutes until the liquid has evaporated, and the tofu dries out slightly.

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Add the cooked rice and stir-fry an additional 2 minutes. Finally, add back in the vegetables along with the soy sauce and mirin and stir-fry for 1 minute to allow the flavor to infuse the fried rice. Taste and adjust seasoning with salt or more soy sauce or sesame oil.

Serve warm, topped with sambal oelek, sliced green onion and the toppings of your choice.

Registered dietitian and food writer Laura McLively is the author of “The Berkeley Bowl Cookbook.” Follow her at @myberkeleybowl and www.lauramclively.com.

For more food and drink coveragefollow us on Flipboard.

“The biggest recipients of welfare in this country are corporations,” said Sean O’Brien on Monday night. “And this is real corruption.”

You’d expect the president of the Teamsters, one of America’s most powerful labor unions, to hold such a view. But that he delivered that comment as a fiery prime-time speaker on the opening night of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee was remarkable, to say the least.

Especially since he was there at the invitation of the Republican nominee for president of the United States and this marked the first time in history that a Teamsters leader spoke at the GOP convention.

And that hardly was the only moment when it seemed like O’Brien’s head-turning lines on Monday night in Milwaukee would have been a much better fit for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

To wit:

“Americans vote for a union but can’t get a union contract.”

“Companies fire workers who try to join unions and hide behind toothless laws that are meant to protect working people but are manipulated to benefit corporations. This is economic terrorism at its best; an individual cannot withstand such an assault.”

There was a whole lot more, but you get the idea. For a party so long allied with business interests and the free market, this was far from the usual rhetoric. Nor was the line: “Today, the Teamsters are here to say we are not beholden to anyone or any party.”

Granted, O’Brien is arguably an outlier among labor leaders, most of whom are supporting Joe Biden for president and continuing the traditional labor union alliance with the Democrats.

O’Brien’s appearance could be seen as a simple gambit to erode a key Democratic constituency and steal voters, just as the opening-night program in Milwaukee featured several Black speakers talking about immigration and even suggesting that recent migrants have received more government help than has been afforded to African Americans over hundreds of years. But the Teamsters have about 1.4 million members across 21 industrial divisions and enjoy a formidable reputation for strength. So there was more to it than that.

O’Brien’s appearance was an indicator of how much the traditional constituencies of the two major parties have flipped, with the Democrats becoming more a party of the highly educated and the economically elite and the Republicans under the aegis of Donald Trump a home for disillusioned blue-collar workers, buffeted by high inflation and convinced that the broader economic boom and rise in the stock market have left them behind.

This is especially true of blue-collar men; earlier this year a Pew Research study found men now are 6% more likely than women to identify with Republicans while women are 7% more likely to lean Democratic.

This disparity is only growing under the leadership of Donald Trump, whose aggressive, fist-raising defiance in the face of Saturday night’s assassination attempt was widely described in a wide variety of slang terminology Monday night as a show of macho toughness.

Take also the comments made to enthusiastic applause Monday night by Tim Scott, the Black Republican senator from South Carolina: “I know this is going to offend the liberal elites: America is not a racist country.”

What Scott said before the colon was just as important as what came after.

Here was a reactive salvo against the pervasive progressive notion that racism might be unconscious in America but is still structurally pervasive. Whites who have resisted that characterization and found it insulting had the chance in Milwaukee to hear a Black leader say otherwise, and the reaction in the hall suggested it was cathartic.

All of these changes, of course, help explain Trump’s selection of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate. Vance has made millions from exploiting the mythology of his blue-collar, “hillbilly” origins and has supported myriad policies that are far from traditional Republican positions of the kind Ronald Reagan would have recognized. If Monday night proves indicative of the whole week, the party has come to Vance far more than Vance has had to move toward the party. And in all probability, that urge to merge still is in its early stages.

Warning signs were, of course, everywhere for Democrats Monday night, as Republicans played by the not-so-subliminal themes of strength versus weakness, unity versus division, authenticity versus dishonesty. Even elites don’t typically like to think of themselves as elite, as anyone who has seen virtual signaling on social media well knows, so the problem here for Democrats is that there are far more people who identify as victims of the elite than who claim membership; the Republicans have purloined Democratic terminology of yesteryear.

The Democratic problem is made yet worse by how deftly Republicans have included the media in their denouncement of the “liberal elite.” By characterizing the media as part of that group, the Republicans have blunted the impact of actual, factual news, such as Trump’s felony convictions. Look at the raised fist and the “fight, fight, fight,” they say, not at the jury returning its verdict. So far it appears to be working.

As some wise Democratic heads know, all of this bolsters the case for Democrats to remove Joe Biden as its presumptive nominee and find an energizing counternarrative, if that even is still possible in the months left before voting begins.

Even as that indecision and internal division plays out, the Republicans are going hard after union members: CNN reported Monday that even the leadership of the United Auto Workers, on whose physical picket line Joe Biden personally stood, are expecting at least 40% of the rank-and-file membership to ignore which party has fought for years for their rights and vote Republican instead.

Thus O’Brien felt empowered to go to Milwaukee and stick out his neck: He knows Republicans now have plenty of rank-and-file Teamsters support. His appearance also likely reflects his views about who he thinks will win this race; there’s no harm in cozying up to Trump before his return to office.

And while it’s surely unlikely that the Teamsters will endorse Trump, it’s very possible they will make no endorsement this fall and thus speak volumes in seemingly unhearing Democratic ears.

— The Chicago Tribune

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