Three months after suffering a concussion during training and having to pull out of the 2023 Pan American Artistic Gymnastics Championships, Zoe Miller actually has a lot to celebrate.
Not only did the 17-year-old come back strong to finish first on the uneven bars at the 2023 Core Hydration Classic in early August, but she also took home $200. The cash prize came courtesy of fellow gymnast and multiple Olympic gold medalist, Simone Biles, who was competing for the first time since famously pulling out of the Olympic Games Tokyo 2021 for mental health reasons. Biles bet her younger teammate Miller that she wouldn’t do an unorthodox celebration dance after her bar routine.
“She thought I was going to chicken out,” Miller said. But “I did it,” and Biles paid up. Miller danced all the way to the bank where she put the money until figuring out what to spend it on.
With the 2023 Xfinity U.S. Gymnastics Championships up next, Miller is preparing by practicing more than just her celebration dances.
After finishing at Classics with a sixth-place finish in all-around, she said she is working on “keeping what I did there but reinforcing it and fixing the mistakes I made,” the two-time national team member shared. Overall, she feels ready for San Jose on Aug. 24-27 where she’ll be on the mat again with Biles, her longtime friend and teammate.
Having started gymnastics at the age of six, the two gymnasts met when Miller moved to Texas at nine to start training at the World Champions Centre (WCC), owned by Biles’ parents, Ron and Nellie. Biles was 17 at the time and two years away from her first Olympics where she would take home four gold medals.
“I’ve trained with [Simone] since a young age, but now that I’m older we have a lot more fun because we can relate more. It’s been really nice,” Miller said. “This has been the most fun year yet.”
When not practicing, the two can be found recording vlogs or making funny Tik Toks together. For the sake of their mental health, she said the team tries to stay off social media as much as possible.
But with Biles back competing, the sport is getting more attention than usual. “It’s mainly positive,” Miller shared, but there has been some negative. “We try not to look at social media too much, but obviously we stumble across some comments.”
What Miller has found that works best for keeping her mental health in check is “to relax at home after the gym and not think about the gym all the time,” she revealed. “But I’m pretty calm and don’t tend to overthink things too much.”
For now.
Miller’s schedule will soon be ramping up as the high school grad was accepted to Louisiana State University on a full athletic scholarship. But in the hopes of making the team headed to the Paris Olympics, she chose to defer her first year of college until after next summer.
“I’m looking forward to being with my teammates [in Baton Rouge], and my twin brother who is also going to college there,” Miller said. Until then her priorities for next year are to “stay healthy and just know that I gave it my all for the Olympic year no matter what happens.”
Staying in top form hasn’t always been easy for Miller as injuries have been a big part of her gymnastics journey.
Having had weak ankles since around 10, Miller opted to have surgery on them after Olympic Trials in 2021. The following year she had to miss out on championships because she fractured her back after Pan Ams. And her concussion earlier this year caused her to sit out the 2023 Pan Ams.
As a result of all that she said she is now more cautious with her back and ankles, and also “I obviously try not to land on my head,” she laughed.
That philosophy should bode well for her leading into world championships. But with her specialty being the bars, she is also thinking about how to improve her other disciplines in order to be selected for Paris.
“If I maintain where I am on bars, I do see myself on the team,” Miller said. “If I can keep my bar scores up and stay consistent in the other events, I think I would be in contention for worlds.”
In preparation for that day, she has been working on being more competitive in the all-around.
“For the upcoming year, I am going to try to strengthen my other events, as well as bar,” she said. “I am probably going to focus on my beam and floor first. For floor, I’m working on an upgrade but it’s not ready yet. And for beam, I need to add some leaps and turns — little things that will boost my value.
“I’m just taking it day by day.”
