Cecile and Laurent Landi helped Simone Biles reach new heights. The Olympics serve as a homecoming

Sport

Cecile and Laurent Landi helped Simone Biles reach new heights. The Olympics serve as a homecoming

2024-07-21 22:51 Last Updated At：23:00

SPRING, Texas (AP) — Cecile Canqueteau-Landi fit “in the box,” as she put it. She was skinny. She was blonde. She was pretty good at gymnastics.

And so at 9 years old, she was whisked away to become part of the French national team program, a path that ultimately led her to the 1996 Olympics.

There was reward in that journey. Yet looking back nearly three decades later, Landi wonders how many promising young athletes had their careers and their lives altered — and not for the better — because they didn’t fit someone's preconceived notion of what a gymnast needed to look like by the time they reached their 10th birthday.

When Landi transitioned into coaching in the early 2000s, she vowed not to make the same mistake.

So maybe it's not a coincidence that when Landi and her husband, Laurent — himself a former French national team member — walk onto the floor at Bercy Arena for women's Olympics qualifying next Sunday, they will do it while leading the oldest U.S. women's gymnastics team — headlined by 27-year-old Simone Biles — the Americans have ever sent to a modern Games.

In another country in another era, maybe Biles becomes something other than an icon.

“An athlete like Simone would never have reached her full potential in France," said Cecile. “Because she would have been put aside because she didn't fit that box."

For the Landis — who began coaching Biles in 2017 — there is no “box.” There can't be.

“It’s not the athlete that needs to adjust to the coaches," Laurent Landi said. "The coaches need to adjust to the athletes and the athlete's abilities.”

Biles was already 20 and the reigning Olympic champion when the Landis agreed to helm the elite program at World Champions Centre, the massive gym run by the Biles family in the Houston suburbs.

They knew Biles fairly well at the time, having already coached gymnasts who competed alongside Biles at several world championships and the 2016 Olympics. During the interview process, all three agreed there was no point — and no fun — in having Biles merely try to hold on to her otherworldly talent. To keep her engaged, they needed to make sure she kept moving forward.

The result has been perhaps the best gymnastics of Biles' remarkable career, a stretch that includes three world all-around titles and another handful of entries in the sport's Code of Points with her name next to them, from the triple-double on floor exercise to the Yurchenko double pike vault that drew a standing ovation at the Olympic trials last month.

Biles views her relationship with the Landis as more of a partnership.

“They’ve been big mentors in like my adulthood (because) they got to see and harness the more mature Simone,” Biles said. “They’ve helped me a lot not just in the gym but out of the gym, too.”

When Biles moved into her first house, Cecile came over and showed her how to operate the dishwasher. When a gymnast who had just gotten their driver's license had a problem with one of her tires, Cecile went to a nearby gas station and gave a tutorial on how to use the air pump.

“If we can help and they want the help, then why not?” she said, with a laugh.

The trick is finding a way to provide that help safely and productively, particularly amid a culture shift in the sport aimed at empowering athletes to take ownership of their gymnastics. It is a delicate needle to thread. What serves as motivation for one athlete could be construed negatively by another.

It's a reality the Landis are well aware of as they try to find the proper balance between being too rigid and too lax. They grew up in a time when the coach/athlete relationship was one-sided. There was no back and forth. There was no discussion. The coach set the standards and expectations. The athlete met them or they didn't last long.

The shift toward a more cooperative approach was overdue, but that doesn't mean it is always easy. Laurent Landi acknowledges he's not the most patient coach, although those around him say he has mellowed a bit over the years. He also understands if he wants to keep doing this for a living, he didn't have much of a choice.

“Yeah, there will be frustration," he said. “But you can always go around some stuff and just take your pride (as a coach) away and make sure that the athletes still get the skill done.”

It's an approach that helped World Champion Centre's elite program send five athletes to the Olympic trials, with Biles and Jordan Chiles making the five-woman U.S. team while Joscelyn Roberson and Tiana Sumanasekera were selected as alternates.

It's the kind of success Roberson envisioned when she moved to the Houston suburbs a few years ago to train under the Landis. She was intimidated at first before realizing her new coaches “have a million different ways to coach one skill," a marked departure from what she was used to.

The goal is to meet the athletes where they are at on a given day, understanding no two gymnasts are the same and what works for one might not necessarily work for another. Perhaps even more importantly, they have learned to evolve as the nature of coaching evolves.

“We’re not always right,” Laurent said. “If you do your own way all the time, you will hurt the majority of the athletes. Maybe one will survive and will be an amazing person, amazing athlete but the (other) 90%, they will be broken. ... We had to adjust to Simone, otherwise we would have broke her."

It's not just Biles' age they had to accommodate, but her schedule. She is no longer a precocious teenager who buries herself in the gym. She's a newlywed whose schedule is packed with everything from corporate commitments to building a house and a family with her husband, Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens.

“When (we) tell him he just hears ‘you’re missing practice’ and kind of freaks out,” Biles said. "Because he sees all the end goals and then he gets the calendar and then he’s like: ’Oh, OK, that’s fine. We’ll do this today, we’ll do that.' So it just takes time for him to process.”

Biles certainly appears well-prepared. She arrives in Paris at the height of her powers more than a decade after ascending to the top of her sport. She'll be accompanied by a pair of coaches who view the trip as more of a business trip than a homecoming.

While the Landis have been approached to take over the women's national team program in France in recent years, returning never made much sense to them even with the women's program is in the midst of a resurgence.

“I think our family will be very proud, probably more than we are," Cecile Landi said. “Because in a weird way, it’s just work for us.”

And perhaps, goodbye, too.

Cecile, long a supporter of NCAA gymnastics, earlier this year agreed to become the co-head coach at the University of Georgia. Laurent will remain at World Champions Centre in the short term until daughter Juliette — who will dive for France during the Games — graduates from high school next spring.

After that, who knows? The young gymnast put in a box has become a coach who no longer puts limitations on anyone, herself maybe most of all.

“I think I've done everything I could do in elite, and beyond what I could ever have imagined as a little French girl in a little town,” Cecile said. “I've coached the greatest of all time. I've coached many kids. I've had many great athletes in NCAA and elite that I feel like I want to try what's next, a new challenge.”

AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games

Pope urges church in Papua New Guinea to be close to women after hearing of sorcery 'superstitions'

2024-09-07 19:35 Last Updated At：19:42

PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea (AP) — Pope Francis called Saturday for the Catholic Church in Papua New Guinea to be particularly close to women who have been abused and marginalized, speaking out in a country where violence against women is reported to be more than twice the global average.

Francis heard first-hand about the plight of women during his first full day in the South Pacific nation. A nun told him of the church’s work caring for women who have been attacked and accused of witchcraft and sorcery, and then shunned by their families.

“I think too of the marginalized and wounded, both morally and physically, by prejudice and superstition sometimes to the point of having to risk their lives,” Francis said. He urged the church to be particularly close to such people on the peripheries, with “closeness, compassion and tenderness.”

According to U.N. Women, 60% of Papua New Guinea’s women have experienced physical or sexual violence from an intimate partner at some time in their lives, double the global average. Allegations of sorcery against women are common. Papua New Guinea ranked 151 out of 166 countries on the U.N. Development Program's gender inequality index in 2022.

Francis amended his remarks throughout the day to include reference to women after the governor general of Papua New Guinea, Bob Dadae, welcomed him to Papua New Guinea by calling for greater protection of women and respect for their rights.

Women “are the ones who carry the country forward, they give life, build and grow a country,” Francis said in his first ad-libbed speech to political leaders and diplomats. “Let us not forget the women who are on the front line of human and spiritual development.”

The issue of women and inequality is particularly fraught for the Catholic Church, given women are barred from the priesthood and are often treated as second-class citizens by the all-male hierarchy. Francis has denounced gender-based violence, appointed women to top Vatican positions and called for women to have greater decision-making roles in the church, but he has still reaffirmed the ban on women’s ordination.

It was an improvised first day of Francis’ visit, the second leg of a four-nation journey through Southeast Asia and Oceania that represents the longest and most challenging of his pontificate.

Dancers in swishing grass skirts performed for Francis to the thump-thump-thump of drums as he presided over a mix of political and church business. In his opening remarks, he called for an end to the tribal violence that has troubled the country for decades and for equitable, sustainable extraction of its resources.

Francis marveled at the diversity of Papua New Guinea’s people — there are some 800 languages spoken here — saying their variety must be “a challenge to the Holy Spirit, who creates harmony amid differences!”

But he also noted that such diversity has long created conflict, a reference to the tribal violence over land and other disputes that have long characterized the country’s culture but have grown more lethal in recent years. Francis appealed for a sense of civic responsibility and cooperation to prevail, to benefit everyone.

“It is my particular hope that tribal violence will come to an end, for it causes many victims, prevents people from living in peace and hinders development,” he said.

But the issue of women as victims of violence and discrimination, including within the church, punctuated Francis' day, including when Francis met with local priests and nuns gathered at a Marian sanctuary.

Sister Lorena Jenal told Francis about an organization, House of Hope, that provides shelter to women accused of witchcraft and sorcery and works with community leaders to try to change attitudes about women.

She told him about one woman who was nearly burned to death and was shunned by her family, but was eventually welcomed back after the church intervened.

A Catholic mother of three, Grace Wrakia, addressed the gathering about her experience being named to participate in Francis’ big meeting in Rome last year on the future of the Catholic Church, where women were given equal voice and a vote for the first time in Vatican conversations.

She said the church in Papua New Guinea “should develop and use more of such conversation methods so that the wisdom of the simple people in our peripheries may be heard, respected and valued.”

“I long to see more men and women as partners,” she said.

A nun with the Sisters of Charity, Sister Genevie, was in the pews with other sisters and acknowledged the problem of violence and discrimination was real.

“In our country, men, they still hold onto leadership,” she told The Associated Press. “Mother Teresa told us to help the women.”

On his first day, Francis also called for fair and environmentally sustainable extraction of Papua New Guinea’s vast natural resources, which include gold, nickel and natural gas.

Francis, who has written entire encyclicals about the environment, has long insisted that development of natural resources must benefit local people, not just the multinational companies that extract them.

“These environmental and cultural treasures represent at the same time a great responsibility, because they require everyone, civil authorities and all citizens, to promote initiatives that develop natural and human resources in a sustainable and equitable manner,” he said.

Finally, Francis called for a “definitive solution” to the question of Bougainville, an island region whose people voted overwhelmingly to become independent from Papua New Guinea in 2019. The outcome of the nonbinding referendum has not been implemented.

Despite the rigors of the trip and jet lag — Papua New Guinea is eight hours ahead of Rome time — the 87-year-old Francis appeared in relatively good form, though he coughed throughout the day. He smiled and laughed as he handed out candies to young children who had performed for him, and even took a turn playing a kundu drum, a traditional hand-held hourglass-shaped drum that one group of children gave him.

He was warmly welcomed by crowds outside at each of his stops, with people young and old dressed in traditional grass skirts, face paint and headdresses dancing and singing. And several South Pacific leaders came to Port Moresby for the rare chance to greet the pope, including the prime minister of Vanuatu, the president of Nauru and the prime minister of Tonga.

Francis is the second pope to visit Papua New Guinea, after St. John Paul II visited first in 1984, then in 1995 to beatify Peter To Rot, a Catholic layman who was declared a martyr for the faith after he died in prison during World War II.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.