Simone Biles participates in the final of the female soil exercise of artistic gymnastics during the 2024 Olympic Games. Credit – Gabriel Bouys – AFP / Getty Images
AIn addition, you participated in gymnastics for almost every year in your life and that you have won more world and Olympic medals than any other gymnast in history, what are you doing?
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“My life is easy, it's cold, and I'm not crazy about it,” said Simone Biles, who participated in her third Olympic games, winning four medals at home – three gold and a silver – from Paris.
All eyes were certainly on biles at the games, and she delivered, making a spectacularly difficult safe that no other female gymnast uses in competition. “It's wild now that I think about it,” she said, thinking about the difficulty and danger of this safe. “I was 27 years old to make a double pike Yuchenko – maybe I'm crazy!”
But even if the attention of the world was on her, her own goal was decidedly interior. During the Tokyo Games in 2021, after a scary safe in the team's opening team where Biles lost their orientation in the air in what the gymnasts call twists, she made the difficult – and controversial – decision to withdraw from this event and almost all of her others. This included the general competition, in which she was the reigning Olympic champion, a title that she had to defend. She did not appreciate it fully at that time, but twists were a sign of physical warning of stress and the pressure that had been built around her by making the expectations of the world.
Simone Biles performs her routine on the ground at the 2024 Olympic Games.Naomi Baker – Images Getty
His decision in Tokyo to prioritize his mental health and to step back from competition has become a rallying cry for other young people, from well -known athletes to adolescents who found the strength of his vulnerability. “It makes me happy that people can feel honest with themselves and the people who care about them,” she said about the previous one she has put in showing that it is acceptable to admit when you have trouble and ask for help, no matter your famous, or where you are when you need it. “They should know that they deserve this help. This simply shows the strength of the figures – you are the strongest you can be when you are vulnerable enough to say “Listen, I need help”. It really makes me, really happy that people can get up and talk about themselves. »»
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Finding this voice was particularly difficult for biles and other elite gymnasts for decades, because the national training structure that prepared them for the Olympic Games required rigorous monthly camps where they were separated from their family and discouraged them to express themselves or even admit that they were injured. This culture made it possible to distribute the sexual abuses of dozens of gymnasts, in particular biles and many of his teammates, by the doctor of the national team, who lasted years. With some of her teammates, Biles testified to the Congress to question the management by the FBI of the Abuse reports, and she and other gymnasts also called for both American gymnastics and the American Olympic and Paralympic Committee for having allowed abuse.
Biles (Middle) and other American gymnasts have testified on the abuses they suffered as part of Larry Nassar, the former doctor of the American national gymnastics team, and the FBI's lack of emergency during the management of their cases on September 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. Anna Moneymaker – Images Getty
Thanks to the bravery of biles and other gymnasts, more athlete safety protocols are now in place, and the two organizations have rendered additional mental health support and services for Olympic athletes who may have trouble. In Paris, Biles says that the American Olympic and Paralympic Committee “said people on the spot to help us if we need something mentally. It has been a change in recent years. ”
During the matches, she continued to speak to her therapist of the house even in competition, calling for sessions before each major event on the Olympic calendar. “It made a difference to make me more comfortable and that was what I thought I needed,” she said about regular sessions.
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This comfort has resulted in a confidence that prompted her to win a second versatile title, to help Team USA win the gold from the team and collect gold and silver in individual events. Will it be back on the carpets for the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028? “I have to decide by 2027 if I want to compete,” she says. “I get older a little, but I never say.”
Whether or not she comes back for a fourth Olympic Games, Biles has already assured her place in gymnastics and Olympic history as the most decorated gymnast of all time. But it will probably be what she did, and continues to do, out of the ground to prioritize mental health that really makes her “biggest of all time”.
This story is part of the time100 2025. April 24, during the Gala Time100 2025, time presented Simone Biles With the annual Time100 prize of the evening, recognizing a life of success.
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