The Paris Olympics are a family affair for Laurent and Cecile Landi, the husband and wife coaching team that has shepherded Simone Biles back to the pinnacle of gymnastics and into a third Games.
The French couple — Cecile represented France at the 1996 Olympics and Laurent is also a former French national team member — will also be cheering on their 17-year-old daughter, Juliette, who is competing in women’s synchronised 3m springboard diving for France.
“I never dreamed of this, being in France, in Paris, both of us in the (Olympic) Village — I’m trying not to cry,” Landi said Thursday after watching Biles and her US teammates train at Bercy Arena.
Even after a long career in elite sport as a gymnast and a coach, Landi still relishes the Olympic experience, getting a thrill from bumping into 22-time Grand Slam tennis champion Rafael Nadal or finding herself rooming near US swimming great Katie Ledecky.
“It’s crazy, but it’s what the Olympics are all about,” she said. “Seeing everybody has just been awesome.
“I think it’s cool to be around all those athletes. Everybody is here for one thing, to compete at the Olympic Games, and I think it’s awesome.”
It’s also a welcome respite from the contentious political scene dominating the news in both France and the United States.
“I’m not going to lie, with everything that goes on in this country and our home I’m happy to forget,” she said.
The couple, who met when coaching in Oklahoma, have coached US superstar Biles since 2017 — a year after she dazzled the world with four gold medals at the Rio de Janeiro Games.
They saw her through the debilitating bout of the “twisties” that put paid to most of her events at the Tokyo Games, and when Biles opted to return after a near two-year break from competition they guided her painstakingly through the basics and back to new heights.
The supportive style of coaching they offer at World Champions Centre, the Texas gym owned and operated by Biles’s parents, sent five women to the US Olympic trials with two — Biles and Jordan Chiles — making the team and a third, 18-year-old Joscelyn Roberson, in Paris as the travelling alternate.
French medal contender Melanie De Jesus Dos Santos also moved to Houston to train with them in the run-up to the Games.
“It just goes to show how amazing of coaches they are,” Biles said.
