Gymnast Simone Biles Says She Should Have Quit Before Tokyo Olympics

By Teddy Grant Published: September 28, 2021

Gymnast Simone Biles Says She Should Have Quit Before Tokyo Olympics

U.S. gymnast Simone Biles poses with her bronze medal for the artistic gymnastics women's balance beam apparatus at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, Aug. 3, 2021, in Tokyo, Japan. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

In Summary

Simone Biles said she should have walked away from gymnastics before this year’s Olympics because of an investigation into sexual abuse by the team’s doctor Larry Nassar.

Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles revealed she should have quit gymnastics “way before Tokyo,” she told New York magazine.

Biles, 24, said she should have walked away when former USA Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar was in the news due to the sexual abuse investigation surrounding him.

“If you looked at everything I’ve gone through for the past seven years, I should have never made another Olympic team,” she said. “But I was not going to let him take something I’ve worked for since I was six years old.”

Earlier this month, Biles, alongside gymnasts McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols, testified before Congress about the FBI’s investigation into Nassar. She shared her story about the sexual abuse she faced at the hands of Nassar.

“I don’t want another young gymnast, or Olympic athlete, or any individual to experience the horror that I and hundreds of others have endured before, during and continuing to this day in the wake of the Larry Nassar abuse,” Biles said at the time.

During the Tokyo Olympic Games, Biles withdrew from the women’s individual all-around final and the finals for the vault and uneven bars, citing mental health. She competed in finals for the balance beam, where she won a bronze medal.

“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,” she told New York Magazine.