Simone Biles wore a walking boot on her left foot during an interview with NBC’s Mike Tirico after her final Paris Olympics competition.
“It’s just precautionary, making sure, because we still have [a] tour after this to heal up and all of that stuff. So, just a little bit of soreness,” she told Tirico, 57, in a sit-down that aired Monday, August 5, adding that her calf “is good.”
Earlier that day, the champion gymnast, 27, fell in warm-ups while attempting to land her triple double, with commentator and Team USA alum Laurie Hernandez observing that she “landed weird.” Previously at the Paris Games, Biles had injured her calf ahead of the all-around gymnastics qualifiers. She re-taped her calf before Monday’s floor routine and walked away with a silver medal.
“I feel like elite athletes are pretty tough … through pain or pleasure, we’re ready for whatever,” she explained to Tirico as NBC rolled footage of her fall. “So mainly, what you’re seeing here is, I was just trying to over-rotate for good measure, and I did just that and almost knocked [coach] Laurent [Landi] on out. But it was good.”
Simone Biles is small in stature — just 4-foot-8 — but her reputation looms large. The Texas native started taking gymnastics classes at age 6 and earned an invite to the junior national team camp by 14. She had several world championship gold medals before she made her Olympics debut in Rio de Janeiro at […]
Biles, who now has 11 Olympic medals overall, won three gold medals in Paris, winning the women’s artistic individual all-around, women’s vault and team all-around with Suni Lee, Jade Carey, Hezly Rivera and Jordan Chiles. The victories marked a triumphant return to the Olympics for Biles, who withdrew from the United States gymnastics team in Tokyo in 2020 after experiencing “the twisties” in competition. She took a hiatus from the sport to focus on her mental health.
“I’m a lot happier and I chose to do this,” she said of her Paris comeback. “So at the end of the day, whatever happens, happens. But I’m in a good spot mentally and physically, so you can’t take that away from me. So whenever I’m out there, it’s just pure joy. Can’t believe I’m out there again, competing, representing my country, just having fun, doing what I love.”
Biles beamed with pride while posing with her four Parisian medals in an Instagram post on Monday. (Along with her three golds, Biles won silver in the individual floor exercise competition.)
“More than my wildest dreams,” she captioned the photo. Her husband, Jonathan Owens, left a sweet message in the comments section, writing, “So so proud of you baby.” Meanwhile, her sister, Adria, wrote, “proud is an understatement!! you resilient human being i love you.”
Simone Biles and Jonathan Owens are a match made in world-class athlete heaven. The Olympic gold medalist and the NFL player, who was then a Houston Texans safety, met via the dating app Raya in March 2020. “I didn’t know who she was,” Owens told Texas Monthly in June 2021. “I just hadn’t heard of […]
Biles recently defended Owens, 29, after he was criticized for wearing one of her newly won gold medals in a photo shared via Instagram.
“Crazy thing is, I put my medal on every single one of my family members and took pictures. so don’t ever make assumptions. 🙄,” she wrote. “Like y’all are so f–king miserable. leave us alone.”