Simone Biles Says She Plans on ‘Limiting Social Media’ While She Gears Up for the Olympics… Details
Elite gymnast Simone Biles is confident the Tokyo 2020 history won’t repeat in Paris 2024 after all the work she has put in in the last three years.
Biles pulled out of multiple finals at the 2020 Games to protect her mental health.
The 27-year-old is preparing for a third trip to the Olympics. The woman who will step onto the floor with the rest of the U.S. team during qualifying on July 28 is not the one who left Japan at the center of the sometimes uncomfortable conversation about mental health.
She has evolved, both personally and professionally, committing herself to therapy. And she is happy she was able to help others with her own example.
“It made them want to get help and now they’re getting the proper help,” she says. “So I feel like that’s a special connection that I have with each person that comes up to me and says they that they now have help.”
Biles married NFL player Jonathan Owens in the spring of 2023 and her busy personal calendar is dotted with the mileposts of a normal 20-something: from baby showers to weddings to overseeing the details of the house she and her husband are building in the Houston suburbs.
For now though, her main focus remains her sport.
Two decades after she took up the sport, Biles still finds herself inside World Champions Centre — the gym the Biles family owns in Spring, Texas — countless hours a week. Still flipping. Still twisting. Still “testing my life every day” while dispelling the myth that elite gymnasts peak in their late teens.
Why?
“I think with everything I’ve been through, I want to push the limits, I want to see how far I can go,” she said. “I want to see what I’m still capable of so once I step away from this sport, I can truly be happy with my career and say I gave it my all.”
