For years in gymnastics, the phrase "the twisties" was usually uttered in hushed tones, as if saying the slang term for an athlete's sudden loss of air awareness during a routine would only deepen the problem.
"It's almost like a mythical kind of thing," longtime Oklahoma men's gymnastics coach Mark Williams said. "When someone says `the twisties,' everyone shudders because it's bad."
Then Simone Biles said it in front of the whole world two summers ago in Tokyo, after a sudden onset of the mental block early in the pandemic-delayed 2020 Olympics forced the sport's biggest star to pull out of several competitions -- including the team and all-around finals -- to protect herself.
Biles returned to win bronze on balance beam while doing a slightly altered routine that removed any twisting elements. It was her seventh Olympic medal, and she called the triumph sweet while also admitting the twisties hadn't really disappeared. She and coach Cecile Landi had just found a way to work around them.
That won't be an option on Saturday when Biles competes for the first time since Tokyo in the U.S. Classic in the Chicago suburbs. As of Thursday, the 26-year-old Biles is scheduled to do all four events, including uneven bars, which she acknowledged on her Instagram stories feed this week has been the most difficult discipline to return to "both mentally and physically" because the routines are essentially 45 seconds of uninterrupted flipping, floating and twisting from bar to bar.
Biles could decide at any time what she's comfortable doing and not doing at this point, though the most decorated female gymnast of all time added: "I'm fine. I'm twisting again. No worries. All is good."
However this weekend or the next 12 months in the run-up to the Paris Olympics -- if it gets that far -- goes, simply making it back to this point is a victory in itself.
Not everyone does.
A month or so after Biles raised the conversation about "the twisties" and the mental health issues associated with them, Gage Dyer was training in Oklahoma and eyeing a spot at the 2021 world championships.
Solid performances at the 2021 Olympic trials -- where he finished third on vault and fourth on floor exercise -- had Dyer's confidence soaring. Still, he knew he needed to ramp up the difficulty of his routines if he wanted to make it to worlds.
More twisting. More flipping. Elements that had come easy to him since he became a gymnast at 13, a unusually advanced age for someone to take up the sport. Not that it stopped him. Within five years Dyer had worked his way into a spot at Oklahoma, one of the dominant men's programs in the country.
By 2018, he was competing regularly at national meets. By the spring of 2021, he was an NCAA champion in multiple events. Sure, he'd heard about "the twisties" but never experienced them. Everything came so easily for so long that he assumed he never would.
Then in the late summer or early fall of 2021, the basics he'd mastered so easily at a young age essentially vanished.
Williams noticed. Not that Dyer wanted to talk about it.
"He just didn't tell me," Williams said. "He just stopped doing some of the stuff he was doing. I would be like, `How come you're not doing that?' He'd say, `I just got lost, I'm not doing it today.' Couple days later, `You figure that out?' `No, not yet."'
Maybe it was the stress of being 23 -- a time when a male gymnast typically enters his prime -- and feeling like he was "on the clock." Maybe it was the fine line he was trying to walk between adding more difficulty in a hurry while refining his "old" skills. Maybe it was something else.
To this day, Dyer still isn't sure what happened. All he knows is that for years he could do a "full in" -- a double backflip with a full twist mixed in -- and then he couldn't.
The full-in had always been "super basic" right up until the moment it became borderline impossible.
"I'm like, `if I can't do this, then I have a serious problem,"' Dyer said.
While there is no common cure for "the twisties," many gymnasts benefit from taking a step back mentally in hopes of hitting some sort of internal reset button. Dyer, trying to prove to the selection committee he was ready to compete on the world stage, didn't have that luxury.
An ankle injury suffered in training ultimately took him out of the mix. He hoped the small break the injury provided would help him figure it out. It didn't.
He'd find himself trying to throw the most routine skills -- at least routine skills for someone with his resume -- into a foam pit only for it to turn into "complete chaos." He'd land on his back. He'd land on his side. Everywhere, it seemed, but his feet.
Dyer likened it to a dream -- maybe nightmare is the better word -- where you need to run in order to save your life, and you look down and your legs are moving and you're simply not going anywhere.
"I just got to a point where I knew if I continued to try and do this and push through, I'm going to land on my head and seriously hurt," Dyer said.
While Dyer was able to maintain some of the tumbling elements that made him a floor exercise and vault specialist -- things like triple-back pikes, skills that required only flipping, not twisting -- by February 2022 he realized trying to make a run at the 2024 Olympic team was futile.
"The struggle of trying to compete and trying to maintain that top level of competitiveness while I was dealing with what I was dealing it, it wouldn't have been beneficial for me," he said.
Dyer moved to Florida and currently works in the "Lion King" show at Walt Disney World, where part of his job requires him to work on a trampoline. Some of the things he thought were gone forever at the height of "the twisties" have returned. Just not enough for him to consider coming out of retirement.
"I'm kind of at peace with what I've done, but also, I'll be watching gymnastics and really miss it and think to myself that I could come back if I wanted to," Dyer said. "It's been in my head a time or two. But I don't see it. ... I really like the chapter of life I'm in."
Dyer will be watching Saturday night when Biles steps back into the spotlight for the first time since those surreal two weeks in Japan, when the sports world stopped to focus on a singular athlete turn from heavy favourite to win a fistful of gold medals to essentially a cheerleader for her U.S. teammates while she and her coaches tried to figure out what went wrong.
He believes Biles' candidness about her battle with the various elements of "the twisties" has made it safer to talk about.
"She's proving it right now that you can get back to a certain level and be able to compete," he said. "That it's not the end of everything. There is a way back."
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is supporting Israel's right to defend itself against Iran following last week's ballistic missile attack, saying that right includes 'proactively striking Iranian nuclear sites and oil installations to defund the terrorist regime.'
Florida's storm-battered Gulf Coast raced against a Category 5 hurricane Monday as workers sprinted to pick up heaps of appliances and other street debris left over from Helene two weeks ago and highways were clogged with people fleeing ahead of the storm.
Days after a political sign was erected outside Lululemon founder Chip Wilson's Vancouver mansion, the waterfront property has been vandalized with graffiti.
Toronto Coun. Michael Thompson 'forced himself on' a woman who awoke to find him standing over her after she fell asleep drunk, the Crown alleged Monday, as the five-day sexual assault trial of the six-term politician began in Bracebridge, Ont.
Despite Hurricane Milton evolving into a Category 5 storm, Walt Disney World Resort remains open to the public and will operate as normal. However, the park announced Monday a few closures in an abundance of caution.
A disgraced Winnipeg high school football coach convicted of sexual assault and luring will spend 20 years behind bars.
Two people are in hospital after they were chased and shot at in what appears to be an act of road rage before eventually flipping their car while trying to escape, police say.
Sammy Basso, who was the longest living survivor of the rare genetic disease progeria, has died at the age of 28, the Italian Progeria Association said on Sunday.
With prayers, protests, and a heavy police presence, Canada has marked the anniversary of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel that killed about 1,200 people and triggered an ongoing war.
A disgraced Winnipeg high school football coach convicted of sexual assault and luring will spend 20 years behind bars.
Toronto Coun. Michael Thompson 'forced himself on' a woman who awoke to find him standing over her after she fell asleep drunk, the Crown alleged Monday, as the five-day sexual assault trial of the six-term politician began in Bracebridge, Ont.
Days after a political sign was erected outside Lululemon founder Chip Wilson's Vancouver mansion, the waterfront property has been vandalized with graffiti.
The day after a minivan was set ablaze outside Vancouver City Hall, a 78-year-old man has been criminally charged.
Videos of a meteor streaking across the skies of southern Ontario have surfaced and small bits of the outer space rock may have made it to land, one astronomy professor says.
Two people are in hospital after they were chased and shot at in what appears to be an act of road rage before eventually flipping their car while trying to escape, police say.
Kamala Harris called Donald Trump 'incredibly irresponsible' for spreading falsehoods about the federal response to Hurricane Helene's destruction, offering especially sharp words as a new storm bears down on Florida with just weeks until Election Day.
Palestinian militants in Gaza fired a barrage of rockets into Israel on Monday as mourners marked the anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack, without disrupting a nearby ceremony. Here is the latest.
A canyoneer died in Zion National Park after falling between 150 and 200 feet near the the Upper Emerald Pool in southwest Utah, according to the National Park Service.
The mayor of a state capital in southern Mexico has been killed just one week after he took office, officials said Sunday.
Despite Hurricane Milton evolving into a Category 5 storm, Walt Disney World Resort remains open to the public and will operate as normal. However, the park announced Monday a few closures in an abundance of caution.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Monday there are 'a lot of bad genes' in the United States, while discussing murders allegedly committed by immigrants living illegally in the United States.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is supporting Israel's right to defend itself against Iran following last week's ballistic missile attack, saying that right includes 'proactively striking Iranian nuclear sites and oil installations to defund the terrorist regime.'
A newly released document shows federal cabinet ministers were warned in May 2022 that hostile states were targeting Canada's strategic interests, the integrity of Canadian institutions and democratic processes, and the ability of the public to exercise Charter-protected rights and freedoms.
Global Affairs Canada says it's chartering more flights from Lebanon this week to help Canadians leave the country as conflict escalates between Israel and Hezbollah.
Georgia's highest court reinstated a ban on nearly all abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy on Monday while it considers the U.S. state's appeal of last week's ruling by a lower court judge blocking the law.
Sammy Basso, who was the longest living survivor of the rare genetic disease progeria, has died at the age of 28, the Italian Progeria Association said on Sunday.
If your household has recently been hit by a power outage, here are ways to keep your food safe.
A spacecraft blasted off Monday to investigate the scene of a cosmic crash.
The best minds in science will be thrust from academic obscurity into the spotlight this week when the Nobel Prizes in physics, chemistry, and physiology or medicine are announced. However, there is no shortage of Nobel-worthy discoveries: Here are five breakthroughs that haven't resulted in a life-changing call from Stockholm 鈥 at least not yet.
Scientists announced on Thursday a milestone in neurobiological research with the mapping of the entire brain of an adult fruit fly, a feat that may provide insight into brains across the animal kingdom, including people.
The weapons supervisor in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer by Alec Baldwin on the set of the Western film 'Rust' pleaded guilty Monday to a separate criminal charge of carrying a gun into a licensed liquor establishment.
Cissy Houston, the mother of the late Whitney Houston and a two-time Grammy winner who performed alongside superstar musicians like Elvis Presley, and Aretha Franklin, has died. She was 91.
Federal prosecutors in Nevada have dismissed a long-dormant sex abuse case against Nathan Chasing Horse.
The Federal Court of Appeal has dismissed a challenge to the construction of a massive rail-and-truck hub in the Greater Toronto Area, allowing the project to proceed.
Canada's telecommunications regulator says the country's largest cellphone carriers must take steps to make their international roaming rates more affordable.
FTX received court approval of its bankruptcy plan on Monday, which will allow it to fully repay customers using up to US$16.5 billion in assets recovered since the once-leading crypto exchange collapsed.
Gerontologist Jay Olshansky is used to backlash about his views on human longevity. Decades ago he and his coauthors predicted children, on average, would live to only age 85 鈥 only 1 per cent to 5 per cent might survive until their 100th birthday.
'Eat more vegetables,' doctors and dietitians say over and over. But for many people, it鈥檚 hard to do, because they aren鈥檛 excited about veggies or just don鈥檛 like them.
Travelling on a budget can be stressful, but there are ways you can ensure you're getting the best deal on flights as the holiday season approaches.
The Florida Panthers handed out dozens of rings at a private ceremony commemorating last season's Stanley Cup title to players, coaches, team executives, members of the athletic training and medical staff and more.
The NCAA Division I Council is considering making a landmark change in eligibility rules this week that would allow Canadian Hockey League players to compete at U.S. colleges, the American Hockey Coaches Association executive director said Monday.
Max Pacioretty has a new home. The Toronto Maple Leafs signed the veteran forward to a one-year contract Monday after he made the team out of training camp on a professional tryout.
New data from the Insurance Bureau of Canada (IBC) shows that even though claims for auto theft dropped in the first half of 2024 compared to their 2023 peak, the rates of reported theft remain well above those of years prior.
Tesla is recalling more than 27,000 Cybertrucks because the rearview camera image may not activate immediately after shifting into reverse, the fifth recall for the vehicle since it went on sale late last year.
A Pickering, Ont., student going to college to be a mechanic is shocked the engine in his two-year-old car will not be repaired under warranty after the dealership claimed he had been 'over-revving' the engine.
Videos of a meteor streaking across the skies of southern Ontario have surfaced and small bits of the outer space rock may have made it to land, one astronomy professor says.
A unique form of clouds made an appearance over the skies of Ottawa on Sunday evening.
Bernie Hicks, known as the 鈥楤atman of Amherst,鈥 always wanted to sit in a Batmobile until a kind stranger made it happen.
Bubi鈥檚 Awesome Eats, located on University Ave West took to social media to announce the closure on Friday.
Weeneebayko Area Health Authority and the Government of Ontario have awarded a $1.8 billion fixed-price contract to design, build and finance a new Far North hospital.
Manitobans are in cleanup mode after intense winds barreled through southern parts of the province this weekend.
Avry Wortman, 13, scored two touchdowns on Sunday during her team's win in the under 14 Greater Moncton Football Association.
A gargantuan gourd 鈥 affectionately named 鈥極rangina鈥 by the urban gardeners who grew it in the front yard of their Vancouver home 鈥 earned the massive honour of being named B.C.鈥檚 heaviest giant pumpkin Saturday.
Chantal Kreviazuk is set to return to Winnipeg to mark a major milestone in her illustrious musical career.
Monday was a solemn and emotional day for Israelis and Palestinians. The Oct. 7, 2023, attack saw more than 1,200 Israelis killed and has since left more than 41,000 dead in Gaza.
A B.C. couple is getting desperate 鈥 and creative 鈥 in their search for their missing dog.
Child care was front and centre Monday for the BC NDP, its leader David Eby promoting the party's campaign promises.
A man has died after being shot on Monday night in North York, say police.
Toronto鈥檚 Jewish community is coming together to mourn and is calling for allyship as it marks one year since the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks on Israel that triggered a war that is still raging on.
Two people are in hospital after they were chased and shot at in what appears to be an act of road rage before eventually flipping their car while trying to escape, police say.
Less than 48 hours after his Monterey Park townhome was gutted by a fiery explosion, Calgarian Owen DeFoe returned on Monday to see what was left.
Two meat stores and one restaurant have reopened after being closed by AHS. The stores were accused of selling uninspected meat -- a claim the owners denied, saying they produced all the paperwork required to prove their case.
A 17-year-old boy was killed in a motorcycle crash in southeast Calgary over the weekend.
An event was held in Ottawa to honour the victims on the anniversary of the worst attack against Jewish people since the Holocaust.
The Ottawa Police Service is investigating after a body was found along a road in Barrhaven. Emergency crews responded to a report of a deceased person at approximately 10:15 a.m. Monday in the 3100 block of Greenbank Road, at Strandherd Drive.
The Renfrew County Joint Transportation Consortium (RCJTC) and school bus operators have reached a contract agreement in principle.
Montreal students and supporters showed their grief and anger at protests and vigils as they marked the anniversary of the current war between Israel and Gaza.
Celine Dion introduced the marquee Dallas Cowboys - Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday Night Football game before getting drenched by orange Gatorade.
There is not one space in the Look family home that isn't somehow connected to Alexandre 鈥 from the paintings on the wall to the tequila bottles he collected, his parents have spent the last year gathering his things and bringing them home.
Provincial ministers testified before the House of Commons on Monday, asking the federal government to pay for the cost of the Jasper wildfire.
A Grande Prairie man has been charged with kidnapping after an assault on Sunday.
After four years of criticism, the Alberta government is considering changing how schools are funded
CTV Atlantic meteorologist Kalin Mitchell has details on rain and downpours expected Monday through early Wednesday in the Maritimes, plus an update on Hurricane Milton.
For the first time in years, a direct flight from Halifax touched down at the JD McCurdy Sydney Airport on Monday.
With exactly two-weeks to go until election day, New Brunswick鈥檚 three main political parties spent Monday on the campaign trail talking about crime and health.
A disgraced Winnipeg high school football coach convicted of sexual assault and luring will spend 20 years behind bars.
After concerns were raised in the summer, it appears some 7-Eleven stores in Winnipeg may be shutting down because of crime.
One year has passed since Hamas militants murdered 1,200 Israelis and took more than 200 people hostage. Since the horrific attack, nearly 42,000 people have been killed in Gaza, as the war between Israel and Hamas rages on.
Regina resident Murray Yagelniski says a city-owned tree on his property is the root of the issue behind his basement flooding.
The Saskatchewan NDP says the province's troubled payment and scheduling system for healthcare is only half implemented and has costed taxpayers nearly triple its original price tag so far.
The John Howard Society of Saskatchewan will appear in front of the Supreme Court of Canada on Tuesday challenging a regulation that it says lets correctional workers discipline inmates without sufficient proof.
Communities across Canada, including in Waterloo Region, are marking one year since the Oct. 7 attack that sparked the Israel-Hamas war.
In September, 愛污传媒 Kitchener reported on Sandvine's deals with autocratic governments, including Egypt, where its tech reportedly helped inject spyware into the devices of government critics.
The penalty hearing for Guelph Police constable Corey McArthur has heard from two character witnesses, both supporting an eventual return to policing for the officer who has admitted to assaulting a teen who was handcuffed to a hospital bed.
Saskatoon鈥檚 Prairie Harm Reduction (PHR) says a staff member arrived to work on Thursday morning to find someone at its doorstep, unresponsive from a suspected drug overdose.
A 36-year-old woman accused of sexually assaulting, physically assaulting and threatening residents at a Saskatchewan care home, was not in court when her matters were spoken to Monday afternoon.
Saskatoon mayoral candidate Cynthia Block says the city needs a new deal with Ottawa to keep life affordable.
Ontario Provincial Police are investigating a fatal crash of a side-by-side off-road vehicle east of Parry Sound that killed one and injured another Friday.
For decades, Mississauga First Nation has known that human remains from their land were at the Canadian Museum of History.
The Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM) is the latest organization to call on the Doug Ford government to re-open dialogue with an airline service that transports lower-income Canadians to crucial medical care far from home.
London police are investigating a break and enter and shooting incident that happened this past weekend and are looking for the two suspects involved.
Emotions have boiled over after a judge acquitted two out of three defendants in a manslaughter case, while the third accused has since died
Videos of a meteor streaking across the skies of southern Ontario have surfaced and small bits of the outer space rock may have made it to land, one astronomy professor says.
The cause of a fire that caused significant damage to a home in Oro-Medonte over the weekend is under investigation.
More than a hundred members of the Jewish community gathered at Barrie City Hall to commemorate the events of October 7, 2023, when Hamas abducted more than 200 Israeli civilians and today's ongoing war in the Middle East commenced.
One person was taken to the hospital with what police describe as minor injuries after a loose wheel caused a collision on Highway 400 in Bradford on Monday.
Chrysler鈥檚 parent company, Stellantis, has filed nine lawsuits against the United Auto Workers (UAW) and 23 individual local units, saying the union violated its contract by threatening to strike over the company鈥檚 future plans.
The Ambassador Bridge border crossing was 'temporarily closed' for a period of time, according to the Canada Border Services Agency website.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led militants launched air and ground attacks on Israel, killing nearly 1,200 and taking more than 250 hostages.
Major crime investigators have been called to the scene of a suspected homicide in the northern Vancouver Island community of Port Hardy.
The day after a minivan was set ablaze outside Vancouver City Hall, a 78-year-old man has been criminally charged.
A Canadian soldier who was exposed to toxic chemicals from burn pits while serving in Afghanistan has been awarded full medical compensation for testicular cancer after Veterans Affairs initially denied his claim.
Nearly two years after a man was stabbed to death in downtown Kelowna, RCMP have made an arrest in the case.
NDP Leader David Eby is promising to offer a $75-million loan forgiveness program to entice doctors, nurses and heath professionals to expand health-care services in rural British Columbia.
Three young suspects have been arrested in connection with a swarming attack on a teenager in B.C.'s Okanagan last week 鈥 and authorities have asked the public to stop circulating disturbing videos of the incident.
A Lethbridge police officer involved in a scandal involving former Lethbridge New Democrat MLA Shannon Phillips has been reprimanded.
Lethbridge police say a man who escaped from a psychiatric ward at the Chinook Regional Hospital has been found.
While the summer may be over, construction season in Lethbridge is not.
The Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM) is the latest organization to call on the Doug Ford government to re-open dialogue with an airline service that transports lower-income Canadians to crucial medical care far from home.
For decades, Mississauga First Nation has known that human remains from their land were at the Canadian Museum of History.
Greater Sudbury in partnership with the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, is hosting the organization's annual mining conference.
As millions in federal funding flow into a Labrador group whose claims of Inuit identity have been rejected by Indigenous organizations across Canada, a national Inuit leader worries the Liberal government is putting the rights of Indigenous Peoples at risk.
He may not have logged the fastest time or even gone the full distance, but residents of a Newfoundland town agree the goat who unexpectedly joined the local weekend half marathon was the event's undisputed champion.
A mother in a community where the cost of living is one of the highest in the country says grocery prices are 'inhumane' and retailers are putting profits ahead of people鈥檚 basic human right to food.
The Shopping Trends team is independent of the journalists at 愛污传媒. We may earn a commission when you use our links to shop.聽Read about us.
