- Simone Biles told The Cut she shouldn’t have made the Tokyo team given what she’s been through.
- Biles spoke out about her abuse by Larry Nassar in 2018 and continues to relive it publicly.
- “I was not going to let him take something I’ve worked for since I was 6 years old,” she said.
Simone Biles was projected to win five gold medals at the Tokyo Olympics. So when Biles, the most decorated gymnast of all time, missed a rotation, fumbled and landing, and abruptly bowed out of competition, the world went slack-jawed.
But in retrospect, Biles isn’t surprised her mind stopped her body from doing what it’s done exceptionally for 18 years.
“If you looked at everything I’ve gone through for the past seven years, I should have never made another Olympic team,” Biles, 24, told The Cut’s Camonghne Felix.
In that time, Biles trained for and competed in the Rio Olympics, earning four gold medals and a bronze. She overcame a shoulder strain. She’s endured a pandemic. But most significantly, she spoke out about the abuse she suffered under former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar — and couldn’t escape the constant news about his cruelties.
“I should have quit way before Tokyo,” Biles continued, “when Larry Nassar was in the media for two years. It was too much. But I was not going to let him take something I’ve worked for since I was 6 years old. I wasn’t going to let him take that joy away from me. So I pushed past that for as long as my mind and my body would let me.”
Biles earned one silver and one bronze in Tokyo, and most recently testified in Congress about how US officials handled reports of abuse.
“I believe, without a doubt, that the circumstances that led to my abuse and allowed it to continue are directly the result of the fact that the organizations created by Congress to oversee and protect me as an athlete, USA Gymnastics, and the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee, failed to do their jobs,” she said in a statement.