The emotion finally got to Simone Biles after her Olympics were over.
Upon getting back to the Olympic Village after competing in the floor and balance beam on Monday, Biles “just started bawling my eyes out,” she told the TODAY Show in a wide-ranging interview Tuesday morning.
“[Jordan Chiles] was like, I knew it was gonna happen, I just didn’t know when,” Biles told Hoda Kotb. “I was so proud, happy, bittersweet that the journey’s over. It’s like, it’s so crazy. It happened so quick, my third Olympics.”
Biles took home three gold medals in the individual all-around, team all-around and vault, along with silver in the floor.
That brought her total to 11 Olympic medals, tied with Vera Caslavska as the second-most decorated female Olympic gymnast.
After a disastrous Games three years ago in Tokyo in which she had to withdraw from most of the competition due to the “twisties,” the Paris Games served as a redemption tour for Biles.
Her self-care routine during the Olympics included seeing her therapist routinely, she said, which has become part of her regular routine since Tokyo.
“I saw her three or four times throughout this whole entire process and it didn’t matter if it was before the all-around or after qualifications,” Biles said. “I went back to the village and then I got on a call with her and did my therapy sessions.
“… It just gave me the confidence and did a lot of visualizations before meets so I just feel comfortable and confident enough to compete. Since it’s part of my daily routine, we don’t want to stop that just because it’s halfway across the world.”
2024 PARIS OLYMPICS
Biles, at age 27, is fairly old in a sport where teenagers routinely compete at the highest level. Still, she did not rule out competing at the Los Angeles Games in 2028 when asked.
“You can never say never,” she said. “The next Olympics is on home turf, so you just never know.”
Regardless, Biles is already widely considered the greatest gymnast of all-time, and Paris served as a fitting bookend to the nightmare of Tokyo three years ago, with Biles’ family in attendance after they were not allowed in Japan due to the pandemic.
“He was so excited,” Biles said of husband Jonathan Owens, who plays for the Chicago Bears. “He was more excited to pin trade, he was loving the pin trade. … And so he absolutely loved that and obviously he loved going to see me compete. He was still keeping score. For him it meant the world because he’s seen the amount of hours I put in, so to actually see it in-person, he was like, wow, this is amazing. He was excited to be there.”
The couple, which got married in April 2023, is talking about having children, Biles said, though that could be pushed back if she gives the Olympics one more try.
“Me and Jonathan always talk about having kids. He would’ve had them yesterday if we could have,” she said. “Obviously we both have goals we want to achieve before we start a family, but yes, that’s definitely in our future.”
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