By Mallory Mattingly
Seven-time Olympic Gold medal gymnast Simon Biles just broke her silence about whether she will compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“I’m still on the health and wellness journey,” the athlete told TODAY. “[Her coach] asks me all the time, and if I have to say anything, I’m just like, ‘Give me a little bit more time to recover mentally, physically.’ But he’s always like, ‘Okay, well, you just give me two years.’ So I feel like we’re coming up on that mark. We have a little bit more things to do and then we’ll see.”
“I feel like I’m more on the recovery side now, because I’ve been through so much. I’ve done three Olympics,” she added.
Related: How ‘Limiting Social Media’ Helped Simone Biles Bounce Back
She competed in her first games in Rio in 2016, securing “gold in the all-around, team, vault, and floor exercise.” She went on to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics where she struggled with her mental health, but she triumphed again during the 2024 Paris Games, winning several more medals.
Biles also spoke about her plans after watching the Winter Olympics.
“Yeah, just right now health, wellness, taking care of myself, inspiring others to do the exact same thing,” the Olympian shared. “Because at the end of the day, you don’t know what people are going through in their lives. If I can inspire them to do one little thing each and every day that takes care of them and builds confidence and strength, that’s what I’m going to do.”
While at the Winter Olympics, Biles witnessed figure skater Ilia Malinin fall twice during his free skate run and fail to medal. Biles knew what that could do to Malinin, so she went into “protection mode.”
“I was really worried about how his mental health was going to be,” she told Olympics.com. “When you’re expected to skate a performance of your lifetime and you don’t deliver, I worry how that affects his mental and how the world is going to view that. I’ve been through that firsthand and so I really went into protection mode.”
Malinin also spoke with TODAY about that specific moment, saying, “Of course it didn’t go the way I wanted to, but we can’t look at that now, and all I have to do is just learn from my mistakes there and push to see how I can improve in the future.”
As of right now, it looks like Biles’ Olympic future at the 2028 Los Angeles Games is still up in the air. But in the meantime, she’s using her past experiences to encourage other Olympians like Malinin today.
Read Next: Olympian Simone Biles Dancing to ‘Good Good Father’ is the Most Touching Thing!
Questions or comments? Please write to us here.
– Content: +2Share:
– Content: +4