Simone Biles Says It Was 'Important' for Her to Stand Up for Her Teammates (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Simone Biles (center) and her teammates, from left: Jordan Chiles, Hezly Rivera, Jade Carey and Suni Lee.Photo:Getty Images

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And it’s why she’s felt comfortable using her voice to stand up for herself and for her teammates while the entire world watches.

“It’s important because you have to teach them to use their voices,” Biles, 27, tells PEOPLE on Aug. 6, the day after she concluded the2024 Paris Olympicswithfour more medals. “And if not, you’re a voice for the voiceless, which is okay.”

Biles takes her role as “team lead” seriously, she says.

“I just felt like it was right in that moment to stand up for them, because they’re so young and they haven’t fully stood in their power yet,” the champion gymnast — America’smost decorated Olympic gymnast of all time— says.

Biles tells PEOPLE that “for somebody to stand up, I know it meant a lot for [my teammates].”

As she has throughout her time in Paris, Biles quickly points to the importance of therapy in staging this comeback following a bout withthe debilitating “twisties"in Japan.

“Putting in that therapy and that mental work meant everything to me and it was much needed,” she tells PEOPLE.

It’s similar to what Biles saidafter winning all-around goldon Aug. 2, highlighting that she attends therapy every week and had continued it while in Europe. “Even this morning at 7 a.m. I saw my therapist and there’s a time change,” Biles told reporters during a post-event press conference. “So she is so amazing for allowing me to do that these couple of days in Paris.”

Simone Biles.Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for USOPC

Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for USOPC

“I never thought I’d be on the world stage, again, competing,” said Biles.

Biles covers this week’s issue of PEOPLE, and in it, her loved ones highlight the advocate she is both for herself and her team.

“Everybody knows Simone’s story, right?” her mom Nellie Biles says. “All those times were really dark and stressful times. To work through that and be in this place where she enjoys doing what she wants, and she is handling her sport the way she would have liked to four years ago and that never happened. But this is rewriting her story, and I think it’s great. It’s rewriting it on her terms because she is in this place that she really perhaps wished she would have been for years.”

source: people.com