UGA gymnastics co-head coach helped Simone Biles reach new heights. The Olympics serve as a homecoming

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July 22nd, 2024

UGA gymnastics co-head coach Cecile Landi and her husband Laurent are heading home for the Olympics. They are the personal coaches of two U.S. gymnasts, including superstar Simone Biles.
Cecile & Laurent Landi, coaches of Simone Biles, chat before she participates on the vault during the U.S. Gymnastics Championships, Sunday, June 2, 2024, in Fort Worth, Texas. The Landis are have a homecoming of sorts at the Paris Olympics when the French natives help lead Biles and a U.S. women's gymnastics team heavily favored to win gold. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

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.

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