Simone Biles Cements Status as Greatest Gymnast with Record-Breaking World Championship Transcript

Simone Biles has made history with an incredible comeback after a two-year hiatus, cementing her GOAT status by becoming the most decorated gymnast of all time. This weekend, Biles competed in the world artistic gymnastic championships in Belgium, where she took home four gold medals. That brings her to a total of 37 medals between World Championships and the Olympics. Biles won two of those medals this weekend in the balance beam and bar events.

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To discuss Biles return to competition, we’re joined now by Christine Brennan of USA today. Christine, it’s always great to see you. Simone Biles, now the most decorated gymnast in history, male or female, 37 medals, as we mentioned, a whopping 27 of which are gold. Have we ever seen anything like this in any sport, especially given all that Simone Biles has overcome?

Jeff, I think, because of what you just said, all the things she’s had to deal with: Being a survivor of the most horrific sexual abuse scandal in sports history, domestic or international, the Larry Nassar horrors, being abused in that way, being someone who, as we know from two years ago, went through the twisties, that was the getting lost in the air, the mental block and the difficulties that she had, to the point where she had to withdraw from several events at the Tokyo Olympics. Being 26 years old, having lived through all of that and coming back to have the week of her life, athletically, in terms of the physical prowess that we know she’s had, going all the way back to the Rio Olympics, actually going all the way back 10 years ago to her first World Championship, and the ability to put that all together in what a sport that is truly a high wire act.

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You hold your breath at almost every one of those disciplines and everything she does, be it an incredible high-flying act on the floor exercise, of course, the vault that she’s known for, all the other exercises that are just literally a millimeter, one way or the other, and there’s no metal at all, you’re falling off. It turns out to be something that, obviously, you can’t come back from. And yet, time and again, Jeff, she was not only good, but she was great. The greatest of all time, proving once again, and showing us once again, just how great she can be.

How did she do it? Because, to your point, physical feat is one thing, but in many ways the mental feat is quite another. How did her mental approach fuel her success?

That’s it. It is the mental approach this time and it was things like… Not little things at all, but visualization and having quotes that she would read back to herself and positive thoughts, talking as she did in every press availability, at the World Championships, about her therapist and seeing her therapist while she was there and talking openly about something that even, what? 10, 15 years ago, maybe even five years ago, athletes would’ve been reticent to discuss, the issue of mental health and needing help, wanting to talk to someone about that. She has been so open and what a role model she is for kids and young people and anyone, really, around the world, male, female, anyone, in terms of looking at your mental health. Trying to basically take everything that she remembered about the Tokyo Olympics, a little bit more than two years ago, and move that out of her head so that she could focus on the task at hand.

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And that’s no small feat because it was such a devastating time for her at those Olympic Games in 2021. She was just vilified on social media. She’s talked about that, trying to move Twitter and other… Or X and other of these social media sites away from the top of her phone. She’s talked about wanting to just focus on what she cares about. And, interestingly, Jeff, she talks about going meet by meet. In other words, she’s not going to try to tell us what she’s planning to do maybe in the next year. She’s looking from one need to the next, step by step. A very smart approach, but one that a lot of athletes won’t use, but she is now conditioned herself to understand this is how she can achieve her best in the arena, by being at her best with her mental health.

Let’s talk more about her performance in the arena because her balance being routine on Sunday was near perfect. All this precision, she’s still proving that she is the one to beat.

Oh, she is. We throw around GOAT a lot, whether we’re talking about Tom Brady or Serena Williams or whomever, Michael Phelps. But there’s no doubt that Simon Biles is the GOAT, the greatest of all time, in gymnastics. And, again, I mentioned earlier, she’s 26. Mary Lou Retton, the name a lot of people might remember from the 1984 Olympics, a million years ago, she was 16. This was a little kids sport.

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And I think, of course, now we’ve seen, in part because of Simone Biles and in part because of the push and the understanding of the abuse, whether it would be the horrors of Larry Nassar or just the physical pounding that the body takes of a young child, young girl, young boy, the growth plates, et cetera, it’s now becoming a sport for people who are a little bit older. And Simone has led the way there, too.

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That veteran status that she has now, that savvy, is also allowing her to achieve greatness. She’s not necessarily pushing the envelope every moment. In other words, playing it smart, being smart, knowing that she’s the best ever, so she doesn’t always have to try to create new things, but just, as I said, play it smart at the key moments to win these gold medals and to also show herself that she’s back and that she can compete at this high level.

What about competing in the Paris Olympics? Has she said anything about that?

The Paris Olympics are in July and August next year, so they’re coming up quickly, and that’s a whole different set of pressure because that’s, as you well know, so many more reporters, so many more questions, all the promos, all the commercials, all the things that she’ll be asked to do. As she said, she’s going to have to say no a lot because, what she learned from Tokyo, she’s going to try to take that into this run up to Paris.

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My sense is she will be in Paris at those Olympics, at the age of 27. She would be by far the most discussed and talked about athlete going into those Olympics. But, as she has said, she is not going to make that decision. She’s going to listen to her body and, even more important, listen to her mind as she goes through these next few months.

Christine Brennan of USA Today, thanks so much for your time. We appreciate it.

Thank you, Jeff.