Faith keeps Olympian Simone Biles flying high
AUGUST 1, 2024
U.S. gymnast Simone Biles reacts after competing in the artistic women's gymnastics beam final Aug. 3, 2021, during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Biles won a bronze medal for that routine. (CNS photo/Lindsey Wasson, Reuters)
PARIS (CNS) -- U.S. Olympic gymnast and Paris gold medalist Simone Biles said she credits God and her faith for her success.
Biles, a Catholic, told The Cut in 2021, “I don’t physically understand how I do it. It (is) a God-given talent.”
The high-flying 27-year-old, who trains in Spring at her World Champions Centre gym, said when she travels, she sometimes takes with her a statue of St. Sebastian, the patron saint of athletes, and she also carries a rosary her mother gave her. Biles and her family attend St. James Catholic Church in Spring.
Biles, who won gold in the women's gymnastics all-around competition in Paris on Aug. 1 and helped lead the U.S. women to a team gold July 30, made those comments to Us Weekly in 2016.
"My mom, Nellie, got me a Rosary at church. I don't use it to pray before a competition. I'll just pray normally [by] myself, but I have it there in case," the three-time Olympian told the magazine in an interview. Her parents have told media that they often pray the Rosary for Simone.
Her remark about her patron saint was part of a list in a 2016 article about Biles posted by the magazine online with the headline, "25 Things You Don't Know About Me."
Biles' hometown is Spring, Texas, which is in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. The London-based Catholic Herald described her as "a Sunday Mass-goer." Other news accounts said that Sunday is the only day she does not practice gymnastics so she can go to church with her family.
After the painful sexual abuse scandal rocked U.S. gymnastics, the Houstonian told Hoda Kotb of NBC’s Today in that she felt “called by God” to continue gymnastics, even when she wanted to quit following the pandemic-related delay of the 2020 Olympics and in Tokyo, where she publicly admitted that she struggled with her mental health and athletics, stepping out of competition.
According to news reports, Biles was born in Columbus, Ohio, to parents who struggled with addiction. Her father left and young Simone bounced back and forth from her mother's house to foster homes. When she was 5 or 6, her grandparents, Ronald and Nellie Biles, adopted her and her younger sister, Adria, and they moved to Texas.
According to her Team USA bio, Biles was homeschooled. Besides a sister, she has two brothers, Ronald and Adam.
About her interest in gymnastics, she said: "My first experience with gymnastics was when I was in daycare. We took a field trip to a gym, and I was hooked," she told Us Weekly.
But she added: "Gymnastics is just one part of my life, and I'm having as much fun with it as possible. At some point, I'll have to go get a real job."
Her favorite routine is the floor, she said. Biles is described as determined, disciplined and something of a perfectionist.
"She's always been headstrong," her mom, a retired nurse, told Texas Monthly magazine. "When she makes up her mind, it's, like, oh my gosh -- the whole world could be upset and she'd still do it. My other kids would listen. Her, no. She makes her mind up and that's it."
Biles' approach to her sport has paid off. She is now the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast in history, with nine Olympic medals.
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