Simone Biles shelves future plans despite winning fourth Laureus Sportswoman of the Year award

Simone Biles of Team United States warms up prior to the Artistic Gymnastics Women's Balance Beam Final on day ten of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Bercy Arena on August 05, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

By Craig Ray in Madrid

23 Apr 2025

While her presence is commanding, and her smile enough to illuminate a small city, Simone Biles is also vulnerable and unsure if she will compete at another Olympics.

Simone Biles is only 1.42-metres tall, yet she commands a room, filling it with an aura and a confidence that only a few people can pull off.

All great athletes must have a swagger; they must have iron self-confidence in their abilities. But not all have natural electricity. It’s a difficult element to explain, but they just have “it”.

I’ve only experienced it a few times as a sports journalist. Walking inside the ropes with Tiger Woods in prime when he was in the US President’s Cup team, he crackled and fizzed with intensity. It was intimidating for a bystander such as myself, so can you imagine how it was for his fellow golfers? The energy that emanated from him left no one in doubt about who was the alpha.

Biles has something similar. She is physically diminutive yet simultaneously gigantic as she enters a room. People sense her approaching before she arrives. She has “it”.

It was a first-time, first-hand experience of the Biles aura for me, and it had echoes of Tiger, albeit in the more sedate setting of the 2025 Laureus World Sports Awards.

Biles was in Madrid for the awards ceremony on 21 April, where she was named World Sportswoman of the Year for a record fourth time, which she now shares with tennis star Serena Williams.

Biles is recognised as the greatest gymnast of all time. She has won 11 Olympic and 30 World Championship medals – more than anyone else in a sport where longevity is not normal. At 28, she is way past the expected prime of a female gymnast.

While her presence is commanding, and her smile enough to illuminate a small city, she is also vulnerable and speaks openly about her mental health battles. And that makes her more powerful.

She isn’t afraid to show she is human.

Simone Biles of USA performs on the Uneven Bars at the Women's Qualification of the Artistic Gymnastics competitions in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, at the Bercy Arena in Paris, France, 28 July 2024. (Photo: EPA-EFE / ANNA SZILAGYI)

Mental battle

Gold medals for the all-round title, vault and team event in Paris last year elevated Biles to the stratosphere of Olympians. Coming three years after leaving the Tokyo Olympics mid-tournament because of mental health issues, it was a triumphant return to the top of the podium.

“The most important thing for me was making sure my mental health was as healthy as it could be [before Paris], and then going into Paris was a breeze just because I had been training for so long,” Biles said after accepting her award.

“Coming out here and winning a Laureus Award, I feel like it is the most prestigious, athletic achievement that you can win.

“It’s really exciting and puts gymnastics on the map in a non‑Olympic year, so hopefully we can keep doing that. And two gymnasts won Laureus Awards tonight [Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade won Comeback of the Year], so that’s really exciting for the sport of gymnastics.”

But she peeled back a layer, describing how hard it was, and is, for her to compete at the highest level.

“The mental work has been the hardest. Because showing up is always going to be a little bit difficult for any human in a situation where they feel like it’s in a negative space or they feel like they failed,” Biles said.

“I think showing up each and every day, going to therapy week after week, and I’m still in therapy, has been the hardest.

“But I just need to keep pushing myself, knowing that my mental health journey might be linear, or it might not be linear, but it might be up and down, and I might be in therapy for the rest of my life.

“But it’s something that I’m forever grateful for that I have access to, and that I’ve learned that I deserve this health.”

Simone Biles of Team United States warms up prior to the Artistic Gymnastics Women's Balance Beam Final on Day 10 of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Bercy Arena on 5 August 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)

Unsure future

For all her records and status in the sport, and the fact that the next Olympics in Los Angeles are a “home” Games for her, Biles wasn’t ready to commit to being there.

In a sport with many variables, requiring immense courage on top of skill and dedication, and fraught with so much danger, Biles wasn’t ready to commit to LA 2028.

She is newly married to American football player Jonathan Owens, and might have a different view of the future after being a gymnast since she was a little girl.

“If I’m going to compete again, I’m not so sure,” Biles said. “But I will be at the Olympics whether it’s on the floor or in the stands. It’s a big decision to make.

“Right now, I’m still focused on healing physically and mentally because doing the Olympics takes a toll on your body.

“I’m really enjoying my time off before I decide if I want to go back to the gym and compete. A lot of people think it’s just a one‑year commitment, but it truly is the four years leading up to the Olympics.”

Biles found support from one of the gymnastic world’s greats in Nadia Comăneci, who was the first to post perfect 10 scores at the 1976 Montreal Olympics when she was only 14.

“It’s a lot more work to be able to stay at the top than to get there,” Comăneci said at the Laureus Awards.

“I can’t imagine how it is right now with social media. In 1980, in my second Olympics, after I finished, many people said, ‘you didn’t do so good’.

“And I was like, ‘two gold and two silvers, I think is pretty good’. What I’m saying is, from the top, the only place you can go is down. It’s a lot harder to be able to maintain yourself in that position.

“People see us striving and succeeding at the Olympics. But 80% of the time, we fall in the gym. You see that moment of success, but we hit the ground all the time.

“And I always tell kids, this generation, it comes with the sport. Don’t worry about it. We went down so many times. You will make it. This is what’s going to happen in your life, and the best place to learn everything about life is sports.”

Whatever she decides, Biles has set the standard for modern gymnasts, much like Comăneci and others before her.

Biles is now the standard all others must surpass. DM

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Mental battle

Unsure future