Coco Gauff Shares How Simone Biles Served as Inspiration for US Open Win
Simone Biles is doing mental gymnastics.
As the 11-time Olympic medalist continues to contemplate her return to the mats at the upcoming 2028 Los Angeles games, she emphasized her mental health takes precedence over competition.
While she admitted she is “going to have to make these decisions pretty quickly,” Biles told CNN in an interview published on April 29, “Mental health plays a big role in it because, physically, my coaches will get me in shape.”
Although she can make winning look effortless, snagging three gold medals and one silver at the Paris Olympics in 2024, the gymnast has also been open about the dreaded “twisties”—a mental block that causes an athlete to lose spatial awareness in the air—inhibiting her performance at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
“I feel like it showed the realness to me because everyone thought I was a robot, she’s not real,” the 29-year-old continued, “but it’s like, down to the core, I’m just like you guys. I’m real.”
After Tokyo, she detailed how the twisties were a “trauma response” to the abuse she suffered at the hands of former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor Larry Nassar, who was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison in 2018 for sexually abusing young female gymnasts.
“Everything that has happened, I’ve just like, I'll push it down, shove it down, wait until my career’s done, go fix it.’ And something like this happens and unfortunately, to me, it happened at the Olympics," Biles explained in her 2024 documentary Simone Biles Rising. “I didn’t get the proper care before because I just thought I was OK."
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Now, the athlete told CNN that she is in therapy and wishes that more athletes would be more open about their mental blocks during competition.
“There was Naomi Osaka, Kevin Love, but there were very few in between that would speak about mental health and what they were going through,” she explained. “Those were my guides, and that really helped me speak out about it.”
She added, “So now hearing these athletes mention my name, it’s like, ‘Wow, we’re making progress, we're making change, we’re being a voice and leader,’ so it means the world to me.”
As the most decorated gymnast of all time, Biles has accomplished so much in the face of adversity. Read on to see some of her career highlights…
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Simone Biles first stunned the world during her participation in the 2013 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Belgium.
There, she qualified first in the all-around, second to the vault final, sixth to the uneven bars final, fifth to the balance beam final and first to the floor final, which made her the first American gymnast to qualify to the all-around and all four event finals since 1991. At just 16 years old, Biles became the first Black and seventh American woman to win the world all-around title.
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Believe or not, the young athlete has four (!) gymnastic moves named after her.
Among them is the double layout with a half twist, which the sports star debuted in her floor routine during the podium training for the 2013 U.S. Classic. Eight years after London Phillips completed it domestically in 2005, Biles was able to successfully nail the skill at the 2013 World Championships, earning the tribute.
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Biles once again proved she was a force to be reckoned with during the 2015 U.S. National Championships by securing her third all-around national title, becoming only the second woman ever to do so, 23 years after athlete Kim Zmeska.
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Also in 2015, during the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, Biles ended her performance with an impressive final score of 60.399.
With that victory, she became the first woman to win three consecutive all-around titles in World Gymnastics Championships history, bringing her total gold medal count to 10 at the time—also the most for any woman in World Championships history.
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Biles has never been afraid to address her haters or anyone who has had something to say about her body image.
In 2016, the gymnast first took to Twitter to express that she is "comfortable in her own skin." And in 2020, the athlete again reinforced self-love by releasing a statement declaring that she is "done competing with beauty standards and toxic culture of trolling…because nobody should tell you or I what beauty should or should not look like." Yeah, she stuck that landing.
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Biles is also the first female gymnast since Daniela Silivaș in 1988 to win a medal on every event at a single Olympic Games or World Championships, having accomplished this feat during the 2018 World Championships in Doha.
Biles helped Team USA secure the number one spot less than 24 hours after going to the hospital due to pain from a kidney stone. The star even took to Twitter at the time to say that the "stone could wait."
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Another win stemming from the 2018 World Championships: Biles debuted her now-namesake vault, a roundoff, back handspring with half turn entry, front stretched somersault with two twists (yes, it's as astounding as it sounds) at the selection camp.
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Biles followed up her jaw-dropping 2018 move with an impressive balance beam skill.
She first started training the double-twisting double-tucked salto backwards dismount off of the beam in 2013, but debuted the stunner at the 2019 World Championships where it was given the rating H, the highest rating of any skill performed on the balance beam. Biles expressed disappointment at the skill being undervalued, but despite the rating controversy, she successfully performed it during qualifications and the Biles dismount was born.
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Thanks to her outstanding performance during the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany, Biles once again broke records by surpassing gymnast Vitaly Scherbo's record 23 World medals by winning her 24th and 25th medals (both gold, of course).
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In April 2021, Biles confirmed that she would be ending her partnership with Nike to begin one with the brand, Athleta.
"I felt like it wasn't just about my achievements, it's what I stood for and how they were going to help me use my voice and also be a voice for females and kids," she explained to the Wall Street Journal of the move. "I feel like they also support me, not just as an athlete, but just as an individual outside of the gym and the change that I want to create, which is so refreshing."
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In May 2021, the athlete became the first woman to land the Yurchenko double pike on the vault during her first competition in over a year. The new vault was given a preliminary value of 6.6, making it the highest valued vault in women's gymnastics.
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On June 6, 2021, Biles made history again by becoming the first woman to win a record seventh U.S. senior women's all-around title.
"It's really emotional, especially going into my second time doing an Olympic run," Simone said after her victory. "It's really crazy, and I appreciate everyone that's come out to watch and support us, especially after the year we've had."
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In June 2021, Biles had fans buzzing all over the social media once she debuted a new leotard bedazzled with the image of a goat.
"The idea was to hit back at the haters," she told Marie Claire. "[The haters] were joking like, ‘I swear, if she put a goat on her leo, blah, blah, blah.' That would make them so angry. And then I was like, ‘Oh, that's actually a good idea. Let's make the haters hate it, and the fans love it.'"
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Presidential Medal of Freedom
Biles was one of 17 people who received the nation's highest civilian honor in 2022.
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In 2023, a decade after she won her first world title at age 16, the athlete won her 27th world gold medal at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, breaking the record for world medals and Olympic medals (7) combined with a total of 34.
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