Simone Biles revealed why her flag handoff with Tom Cruise was the most stressful part of the Olympics

Simone Biles won a staggering four medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics. But she says she didn’t feel any pressure while earning them. There was another moment that was way more nerve-wracking for the GOAT of gymnastics — handing off the Olympic flag to Tom Cruise.

I’m not kidding. That’s an actual sentence. Simone Biles was incredibly uneasy about the flag handoff with Tom Cruise because she didn’t want to botch it. During a recent appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, Simone recapped her fantastic Olympic run with Jimmy when he asked her about carrying the Olympic flag during closing ceremonies.

Jimmy mentioned that he thought it had to be a lot of pressure, including not tripping in front of the world, and Simone agreed. Then, she revealed why it was so much pressure, saying, “I’m always tripping, falling down stairs — like, bad for me. So, actually that’s like the most nervous I was for the whole entire Olympics. I was like, ‘Okay, I have to hand the flag off — like, don’t mess it up. Don’t mess it up.’ I was terrified.” (See the 1:23 mark of the YouTube video below.)