Simone Biles, Sports Illustrated’s 2024 Sportsperson of the Year, says at this point in her career, she’s thinking about the sacrifices: “…starting a family, being away from my husband. What’s really worth it?”
When the Summer Olympics return to Los Angeles in 2028, one of Team USA’s most revered athletes may not be amongst the competitors. Simone Biles, widely considered one of the greatest Olympians of all time, says an appearance at the L.A. Games would likely be a matter of “life and death.”
“Because I’ve accomplished so much, there’s almost nothing left to do — rather than to just be snobby and to try again, and for what?” I’m at a point in my career where I’m humble enough to know when to be done,” Biles, Sports Illustrated’s 2024 Sportsperson of the Year, explained in the magazine’s cover story.
“If you go back, you’ll be greedy. Those are the consequences. But that’s also your decision to decide. What sacrifices would be made if I go back now?” she continued. “When you’re younger, it’s like, prom, college. Now it’s like, starting a family, being away from my husband. What’s really worth it?”
If she’s unsure, it’s because arguably, Biles has nothing left to prove. In addition to being the most decorated gymnast in history, she has five skills named for her. She is also one of the Olympics’ biggest comeback stories, having led the U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team to victory at the 2024 Paris Games after bowing out of several events at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics due to developing “the twisties” during competition.
“I remember feeling broken a little bit. Because it’s what I love to do, and now I’m so terrified,” she shared, reflecting on the trauma of that potentially life-threatening challenge. “So it didn’t really make sense, and I was kind of stumped. Like, why am I here? Do I want to be here? Is this what I want to do?”
She now describes the experience as “mental trauma from past years that can’t be swept under the rug anymore; that just is overflowing at that point.”
In the intervening years, Biles became an outspoken advocate for mental health — and a devoted football wife, having married NFL safety Jonathan Owens in 2023. More challenging was returning to her sport and rediscovering her love for gymnastics.
“The end goal wasn’t even the Olympics,” she told Sports Illustrated. “It was, like, be happy doing gymnastics again. Feel like you’re not gonna die.”
At 27, Biles returned to the Olympics as the oldest woman to compete for the U.S. gymnastics team in 72 years. “The hardest part of coming back was learning to trust myself again,” she said. She earned the second-best score among gymnasts in competition, a score bested only by the one she earned at the 2024 U.S. Nationals. Now, she’s not sure she feels the need to achieve more as a gymnast.
“You do feel like you have to accomplish something, and that has weight that you carry, and nobody realizes that. It’s hard and it’s not always fun,” she admitted. “So we have to really remember why we’re doing it, who we’re doing it for, and if this is really an enjoyable experience that we can look back on in a couple [of] years. There’s a lot to take [into] consideration, especially that we’re so much older. You can just, like, have a great life, go get a job and move on.”
With Los Angeles three years away, Biles at least has a little time to decide whether she still feels compelled to compete in the sport she innovated and diversified in so many ways.
“I don’t think the reality has set in of what I’ve exactly done in the sport,” she said. “I can see it, and I hear it from people, and I see a glimpse of it, but the full magnitude I don’t think I’ve realized just yet. I don’t think I’ll realize ’til maybe I retire and look back in a couple [of] years like, ‘Damn, she was good.’”
Read Biles’ full interview in Sports Illustrated.
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