AMERICAN PRODIGIES
EPSIODE 7
TRANSCRIPT
AMIRA: Before we start, a quick content note. This episode contains graphic accounts of sexual abuse and child neglect. There are also accounts of physical and emotional abuse, suicidal ideation, and racism. You’ll also hear some swearing. Previously on American Prodigies…
AMIRA: But there’s something about protecting, you know…
MARIA DEJESUS: A mama bear, right? So I was that bear!
JOAN RYAN: What was shocking to me was that USA Gymnastics was like a mom-and-pop shop.
DEETRA DENNIS: Well, in gymnastics, they tell you, they literally tell you - they meaning coaches - they say not to show any hurt, any physical pain. And of course, you're never going to show any emotional pain, if you cannot even show your physical pain.
JOAN RYAN: They had so much responsibility for all of these gymnasts, you know, male and female, but you talk to them on the phone and you talk to other people about it and you're like, “Are these people trained... or have they had any education on any of this? Do they know what they're doing?”
NIA DENNIS: I struggled with depression. I struggled with... suicide. I struggled with a lot of things. And to be able to go have a safe space where I wouldn't feel judged from anybody or judgment from anything, you know... that really helped get me on track.
AMIRA: Even the most casual observer of gymnastics has heard of Simone Biles. And the not-so-casual observers - the gymnastics heads - are constantly blown away by her skills.
JOAN RYAN: I mean, you're just like, "Wow! There's never been an athlete like this ever!"
Commentator 1(Archival): And she is already so far above the rest of the competition field that she has to only compete against herself...
JOAN RYAN: She almost wasn’t human, really. She was so extraordinary.
Commentator 1 (Archival): Everything she does is effortless.
AMIRA: Simone made her first Olympic appearance alongside Gabby Douglas in 2016. Unlike her predecessor, Simone was not an underdog. Before the Olympics, she was winning all-around gold medals at every event she competed in since 2013.
Commentator 2 (Archival): There you go! Seven-time national champion.
Commentator 3 (Archival): History books again.
Simone Biles (Archival): Over the course of my gymnastics career, I have won twenty-five World Championship medals and seven Olympic medals for Team USA. That record means so much to me and I am proud of my representation of this nation through gymnastics.
Commentator 2 (Archival): It's pretty safe to say that nobody has ever shined brighter on this stage.
Commentator 3 (Archival): Well, that's for sure!
AMIRA: Simply put, she’s the GOAT.
Commentator 3 (Archival): She is the greatest gymnast of all time. And she has a lot more to do.
AMIRA: Simone’s greatness set her apart… except when it didn’t. We would eventually learn that the institutions that benefitted from her stardom had let her down - just like it had with so many before her. A week before Simone won the all-around gold medal at the Rio Olympics, this news broke:
JESSICA LUTHER: August 4th, 2016, the Indianapolis Star published a huge investigation into sexual abuse inside USA Gymnastics at large. They did a ton of digging. It was like... it was almost movie worthy, like one of the journalists got on a flight to Georgia right before they sealed all these records and got them before USAG was able to intervene.
AMIRA: According to the report: USAG compiled confidential sexual misconduct complaints about fifty-four coaches over a ten year period: from 1996 to 2006. It was unclear which, if any, of the complaints were reported to the authorities or how many files had been added since 2006. But in the summer of 2016, the Star’s investigation barely made a ripple.
JESSICA LUTHER: Part of the thing about gymnastics or any Olympic sport, it only has a platform every four years. People just want to watch and enjoy. So, when the Indianapolis Star released this big thing in August of 2016, it just couldn't compete with the sort of love of the sport for those two weeks.
AMIRA: A year earlier, gymnast Maggie Nichols reported Dr. Larry Nassar to USAG for sexual abuse at the Karolyi’s Ranch. The organization conducted internal investigations. Marta Karolyi was informed and USAG told the FBI. But none of the gymnasts who regularly saw Nassar for treatment were told anything. Simone – who hadn’t yet realized that she, too, had been abused by Nassar, or that USAG was busy covering up his crimes – was kept in the dark during those Olympics.
Simone Biles (Archival): While I was a member of the 2016 U.S. Olympic team, neither USAG, USOPEC nor the FBI ever contacted me or my parents. I had been left to wonder why I was not told until after the Rio Games.
AMIRA: After realizing the magnitude of what happened to her and countless other athletes, Simone spoke out. In between Olympic cycles, while she was winning at national and world championships, she used her platform as the GOAT to call attention to USAG’s ineptitude. And she was determined to compete in the 2020 Olympics.
Simone Biles (Archival): I worked incredibly hard to make sure that my presence could maintain a connection between the failures and the competition at Tokyo 2020. That has proven to be exceptionally difficult burden for me to carry.
AMIRA: I’m Amira Rose Davis. In today’s episode, we’ll not only dive into Simone Biles’s jaw-dropping career, but we’ll also learn how this young woman refused to be silenced. Her flips and tricks are historic. But her decision to hold accountable the people and institutions that failed generation after generation of gymnasts truly makes her an icon. You’ll also hear from Nellie Biles, Simone’s mom:
NELLIE BILES: I've always told her, you know, don't forget to be the best Simone. And in those circumstances, she was the best Simone because she did her best and took care of herself.
AMIRA: Simone pushed the rigid boundaries of gymnastics and stepped into her power as an advocate for mental health and as a sexual abuse survivor. And gymnastics will never be the same.
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Commentator 4 (Archival): You know, yesterday, Simone told us that she likes to let her gymnastics speak for her. Well, the queen has definitely spoken.
AMIRA: In addition to winning a shit load of medals, Simone had four skills named after her on the floor, beam, and vault. Four!
Announcer 1 (Archival): And this is her signature skill. Named after her. That’s the Biles. Difficult to land - it's completely blind. But she always knows where it is and nails it again.
AMIRA: What makes these namesake skills difficult are their blind landings or additional flips and twists. This is also true with her latest vault - the one she was hoping to compete at the Olympics in Tokyo. It's called the Yurchenko double pike.
Commentator 4 (Archival): Wow.
Commentator 5 (Archival): Unbelievable!
AMIRA: Simone debuted this vault at the 2021 U.S. Classic, where she did it so well that she actually had too much power – and bounced backwards out of her landing as if she could have kept flipping. Of course, Black women are only allowed to be great for so long before they’re met with criticism.
Commentator 5 (Archival): A lot of the experts were out there saying, "You know she doesn't need to do it. Why would she do this? The potential for you know getting hurt, you know, is so great!"
AMIRA: Gymnastics has long favored lean lines and balletic artistry – ideals established by the old European gymnastics' regimes. The highest scores were reserved for the gymnasts that could match those ideals. But the scoring system changed in 2006 to include points for both artistry and difficulty. The level of difficulty is now open ended - the points are, in theory, just supposed to keep going up the more flips and twists you add. This system plays in Simone’s favor. She can do moves no one else can do and she also looks fantastic while doing them. But when Simone debuted the beam dismount named after her - two backflips with two twists) - the judges didn’t give her the difficulty points she deserved.
Commentator 6 (Archival): So Simone Biles waits for this last score to come in... 14.8!
Simone Biles (Archival): And then they came out with the rating and everyone was just like furious.
DR. COURTNEY JOHNSON: There's a dominant person and everyone else can step their game up. [laughs] Which sounds kind of rude, but like maybe it helps people, you know, do their best, you know, really try hard, like really strive to do better. I just don't think there's anything wrong with that.
AMIRA: That’s Dr. Courtney Johnson. She’s a former gymnast, a physical therapist, and a board member for an organization called Brown Girls Do Gymnastics. Simone does these skills because she can. She has the talent and the power – why not push the sport to higher heights?
DR. COURTNEY JOHNSON: Just step your game up! Not every gymnast is supposed to be a Simone Biles either. I mean, in any sport, there's always someone that comes in and like advances a sport or changes it. They let her change it, like... And give her the difficulty! I mean, this is America. Racism, racism is a huge deal. And having, like a Black or brown person as like the leader of something is still difficult, you know? [sighs] I don’t know. I just really wonder, like…hmm…if it were somebody else... would we really be limiting them like that?
AMIRA: On her Facebook Watch docuseries, "Simone Versus Herself," the GOAT threw a little shade at those who couldn’t deal with her once again transforming the sport. And I was here for it.
Simone Biles (Archival): I am almost 99.9% sure if any other athlete were to do it besides me, they would give it correct credit. But since I’m already way ahead of everybody, they kind of want to pull it back. Cause sometimes, they don’t think it’s fair that I win all the time.
AMIRA: Being a Black athlete in a white sport, competing in a sport that demands perfection and being a child in a career where it's normal to train thirty to forty hours a week is a lot to carry. When Simone was a younger teenager, Nellie saw how the pressure was already affecting her daughter’s performance and sought professional help.
NELLIE BILES: At thirteen - at age thirteen - I remember we talked about getting her to a sports psychologist to help her. And so, she started that at thirteen because she had been trying and trying to get into the Elite world, and could not qualify. But I knew she could! I knew she had the skills, but she had difficulty executing. It was a lot of hesitation too on her part because here she is competing with these girls that are her idols.
AMIRA: When she was coming up on the national team, Simone was training with the best – with people like Gabby Douglas and Ebee Price.
NELLIE BILES: And that really threw her off, and she didn't think that she was good enough. And there was a lot of talking and making sure that she understands that the only reason you're here, and the only way you could get here, is if you're good enough. So, it’s getting her to believe that.
AMIRA: It’s hard to imagine the girl who would become the greatest of all time feeling unsure of herself. But Nellie was on top of this early on:
NELLIE BILES: I believe in counseling for these kids at young ages. I mean, this is not something to be ashamed of, to go and speak to someone.
AMIRA: Simone would eventually become known not only for her gymnastics but for her voice. She used it not only to speak to someone but to speak out against abusive people and institutions. Simone became the GOAT at a very specific time: the height of Marta Karolyi’s power and during the era when Larry Nassar sexually abused hundreds of athletes. Most of them gymnasts.
JESSICA LUTHER: The numbers around Nassar are so shocking and you should be shocked by the amount of people that he harmed. But he was part of a much larger system as we all came to learn when we learned so much more about what people at USAG did to protect him themselves and the organization.
AMIRA: That’s Jessica Luther, our story editor on this series. She’s also an investigative journalist who has spent years reporting on sexual abuse in sports.
AMIRA: What were the things that made this case or made this abuse something that people could ignore?
JESSICA LUTHER: It is easier to do nothing about gendered violence than to do something. And so, people almost always default to doing nothing. Especially institutions, bureaucracies. I mean, they're not… They encourage people to make the wrong choices around this. If you want the institutions to keep going, if you don't want to deal with the media around this, if you want to keep winning medals at whatever costs... you set up your institutions in the way that these institutions are set up.
AMIRA: In January 2018, hundreds of athletes came forward about the sexual abuse they suffered while receiving so-called ‘treatment’ from Nassar, the longtime doctor for USAG. Isabell Hutchins, Mattie Larson, Kaylee Lorincz, and Emily Morales were among the 204 survivors who shared their statements with the court before Nassar was sentenced. A warning: the next minute of the show contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault. Please skip ahead if you need to.
ISABELL HUTCHINS: Larry said that one of the main parts of rehab was trying to get range of motion back. He said that the easiest way to stretch it without pain was to insert his fingers into slot inside my vagina and press up against the insertion of the muscle he would perform this treatment without gloves, without asking my parents and without anyone else in the room.
MATTIE LARSON: In the midst of all these adults who I was scared of, Larry you were the only one I trusted. In the end you turned out to be the scariest monster of all.
KAYLEE LORINCZ: You have taken away my trust in others and for me to be able to form relationships with anybody.
MATTIE LARSON: Your "kindness" was simply a ploy to molest me every chance you got. I can't even put into words how much I fucking hate you.
EMILY MORALES: To the USA Gymnastics, the United States Olympic Committee, Michigan, State University and John Geddert, I have one thing to say to you: don't you ever let this happen again.
AMIRA: Hearing these impact statements deeply resonated with Simone, and compelled her to publicly acknowledge that she, too, had been abused. It had taken awhile to admit this to herself. It’s not uncommon for abuse survivors to have this re-evaluation later on. Nassar hid behind his medical degree, explaining away his abuse with medical terms. So, gymnasts went decades knowing that it wasn’t right but not understanding how wrong it was. In an interview with Pryianka Chopra Jonas in 2019, Simone shared how she discovered that what Nassar did to her was wrong:
Simone Biles (Archival): There was a time I asked my friend, and I called her, and I asked her the definition of "sexually abused." She said, "If he did that and that, you've been sexually abused." And I kind of brushed it off, and I was like, "No. I am not willing to put that out there for the world to see. They're not gonna see me as Simone the gymnast, they're gonna see Simone as a sexual abuse survivor." And so I denied it.
ALANNA GARDNER: cause sometimes you're just so in the thick of everything that you know, you're not able to kind of name something.
AMIRA: That’s mental health therapist Alanna Gardner.
ALANNA GARDNER: I think something that's incredibly important is that you kind of have to have somebody outside of you validate what it is that you're going through - to name it and call it thing a thing. And say that, "You know what? I'm also going to let you know how terrible that that was and how unfair that was."
AMIRA: As the most decorated American gymnast, male or female, Simone had a lot to lose by coming forward. Would she be villainized or mocked by people inside and outside of the sport? Would the Nassar story overshadow her career Simone decided to tweet her statement.
JESSICA LUTHER: I mean, any time I read a statement from a survivor, I'm going to feel sad. But the way she starts it, “As most of you know me as a happy, giggly and energetic girl. But lately, I felt a bit broken, and the more I tried to shut off the voice in my head, the louder it screams. I'm not afraid to tell my story anymore.” And I think that's so interesting that she felt like she had to start by telling us what we think of her - that she's so happy and bubbly in order to break that down and have people listen to her. To like... I'm not... That's not the full me.
AMIRA: Even when somebody gets clarity on a traumatic situation, the aftermath can be overwhelming.
Simone Biles (Archival): And I was very depressed. I, like, never left my room. I was sleeping all the time. And I told, like, one of my lawyers, I said, "I sleep all the time because it's the closest thing to death."
ALANNA GARDNER: When Black women experience, you know, anxiety or depression, they don't see it as anxiety, depression. They think, "I'm not meeting up to certain standards and expectations." Then when you layer that on with being a gymnast where that level of expectations and perfection is just so high, and you're always striving for that, you know, you can't tell where things are coming from, I feel like a lot of the times. You're just in it head down, headlong.
AMIRA: Yeah. A lot of people said that I just had to put my head down and get through it. And I think that one of the things that we see is like... We say Black women, but we're really dealing with prodigies... we're dealing with kids, we're dealing with teenagers. And it’s not until they’re “gymnastics old” but still relatively young - in their 20s - that these young women are actually processing the entirety of their careers - all of it.
ALANNA GARDNER: And here’s the thing… you only have so many tools as a child. You really only have but so many tools. So, does the tools look like self-harming? Do the tools look like, you know... binging and restricting? You know, do the tools look like turning towards somebody that, you know, is actually quite dangerous for us? You can't blame the child for that. That's the culture of the sport that needs to change.
AMIRA: And at the time, Simone was a child - and processing this enormous thing that happened to her. But she was also poised to change the culture of the sport. And ready to take on the institutions that allowed this to occur. In the same tweet, Simone said: “It breaks my heart even more to think that as I work towards my dream of competing in Tokyo 2020, I will have to continually return to the same training facility where I was abused.”
JESSICA LUTHER: Multiple of the women were going up there and saying, "I was abused by Larry Nassar at the Karolyi Ranch and outside of Houston. And the ranch should be shut down." Like they were saying this over and over and over again.
AMIRA: During the testimonies, USAG was under contract to lease the Karolyi Ranch for National Team trainings until 2021.
JESSICA LUTHER: And they were like, "We're working on not doing that anymore. But... for now, you all are going to go back to the Karolyi ranch!"
AMIRA: Three days after Simone’s tweet, USAG terminated its contract with the Karolyis. The Ranch – that had served as the National Team training center for over sixteen years – was finally shut down. Ending the reign of one of the most powerful regimes in Elite Gymnastics.
JESSICA LUTHER: I don't think there's any denying the impact. It was a huge moment.
Simone Biles (Archival): And I think when we tweet it obviously goes a long way. So, we're blessed to be given a platform, so that people will hear and listen.
AMIRA: Nassar, who pleaded guilty, would eventually be sentenced to 175 years in prison for sexually assaulting minors. At the time, this was the largest case of sexual abuse in American sport. And USAG was rotten to its core. In November 2018, the US Olympic Committee moved to de-certify USAG, saying the organization had too many problems to fix to continue in its current form. But that effort was halted the next month when USAG filed for bankruptcy. It couldn't handle the more than one hundred lawsuits filed by roughly 350 Nassar victims. Of the hundreds of Nassar survivors, Simone was one of a handful of Black women who disclosed her experience.
JESSICA LUTHER: And on the other side of this, I think we have to talk about the fact that... because of racism and sexism, the institutions that these women are supposed to report into, especially law enforcement... like that's a dangerous thing to do. We know that Black women are often criminalized for being victims of gendered violence - especially if they fight back.
AMIRA: According to the National Center on Violence Against Women, one in four Black girls will be sexually abused before the age of eighteen. And 35% of Black women experience some form of contact with sexual violence during their lifetime.
JESSICA LUTHER: I mean, I'll just say on a really basic level that anyone who is marginalized in multiple ways is going to be overlooked as a survivor. We don't hear about girls of color and women of color being abused because they're just not part of our cultural understanding of victim.
AMIRA: And there is historical precedent for this.
JESSICA LUTHER: We have this horrible history in this country. I mean, we can trace back hundreds of years of believing Black women, Black girls, to be overly sexual as if they're asking - I feel gross even saying it - but like as if they are asking for these things to happen, they don't mind these things happening to them. And of course, that's all racist bullshit that was created in order to justify sexual violence against Black women without having to feel bad about it.
AMIRA: Jordan Chiles witnessed firsthand some of Simone’s trials and tribulations.
JORDAN CHILES: I will fight back for her because the things that she's gone through, you guys only know half of what has happened.
LEXI: She deserves grace and she deserves, you know, a little bit of consideration.
AMIRA: That’s Lexi - a gymnastics superfan and Twitch streamer.
LEXI: There's so much going on with Simone that we will never be privy to unless she makes us privy to it. And that's her right as a person, not necessarily an athlete.
AMIRA: Tasha Schweikert, a Black gymnast just before Simone’s time, competed in the 2000 Olympics and for UCLA. In 2015, she earned a law degree. She was a member of the legal team that worked to negotiate a $380 million dollar settlement between USAG and over 500 gymnasts. Most of them were Nassar victims, but plenty were not. It is a reminder that the problems were always bigger than just him. Simone understood that. And she wasn’t done disrupting the establishment.
Simone Biles (Archival): It's hard coming here for an organization and having had them failed us so many times. And we had one goal and we've done everything that they asked us for, even when we didn't want to, and they couldn't do one damn job. You had one job. You literally had one job and you couldn't protect us.
LEXI: It’s just... it's heartbreaking that Simone feels the way that she feels. She's talked forever about not really wanting to come back, but she wanted to be the only survivor that came back so that USAG would have to be like, you know... there's still a survivor here. And I hate that she felt like she had to take, like, the pressure of the world on her shoulders.
[AD]
AMIRA: Simone went into the 2020 Olympics – held in 2021 – without losing an all-around in seven years. She was obviously expected to sweep the competition.
Commentator 7 (Archival): Simone Biles - what are we expecting?
Commentator 8 (Archival): Ha! Greatness. But, she really has no peers. Nobody is on her same level.
AMIRA: Helped by Simone’s huge level of difficulty and normally high scores, the United States was expected to win their third consecutive team gold medal.
Commentator 9 (Archival): Not just her teammates but the entire nation, and not just the nation, the entire world is expecting for her to be the best, just like she always is. And that’s a lot.
Commentator 10 (Archival): It’s the rarest air. There is nobody else occupying it right now. And it’s gotta be a lonely place at times.
Commentator 9 (Archival): Nobody knows what it feels like except for Simone Biles.
Commentator 10 (Archival): Here we go…
Commentator 11 (Archival): This is called an “Amanar”...
Simone Biles (Archival): Everybody's like, "You're the glue to the team." And that kind of really stressed me out because I never thought of it that way. But then whenever it's kind of being shoved down your throat, it's just like... "So then if I have a bad practice, then the girls are off... Then if I don’t have a good attitude, then they-" It's just like, hard.
NELLI BILES: The expectation she was now putting on herself was more than she should have.
AMIRA: Nellie Biles, Simone’s mom, felt her intuition kick in before Simone even got on that plane to Tokyo.
NELLIE BILES: I knew there was something amiss before she left. So, I even said to her, "I think you need to speak to your sports psychologist."
AMIRA: Family couldn’t go to Tokyo with their athletes due to COVID-19 restrictions. So, Nellie watched the Olympics from back home in Houston. And while she sat on her couch watching Simone perform, her earlier misgivings were confirmed.
NELLIE BILES: I remember when they were doing the prelims and I'm like, "She's not focusing. She's not on. Something is not right." Because the mistakes she was making at that time is not like Simone. She did qualify for all the events, but I knew that that was not the Simone that I know that's truly pushing and competing. There was something amiss.
AMIRA: During the team final, Simone was supposed to do a Yurchenko with two and a half twists.
Commentator 12 (Archival): Wow. And that... was not what was planned.
AMIRA: Simone pushed off of the vault and opened up her flip too early. She only spun around one and a half times, landing crooked, in a deep squat. She saluted the judges and ran over to her coach. Behind the announcer, you could hear Simone saying, “I just don’t know what I’m going to do the rest of the meet. That’s my problem. I don’t want to do something stupid. I don’t trust myself.”
TV HOST 1 (Archival): American Superstar gymnast Simone Biles is out of the women’s gymnastics team final. And according to USA Gymnastics, she’s out for the night. They did release a statement here to the media saying that she has withdrawn - “she” being Simone - from a team final competition due to a medical issue...
Simone Biles (Archival): In gym we call it the “twisties..." Should be a forbidden word. Cause it sucks to have 'em... For anybody. Ended up starting to get like mental blocks where I don't want to go for the skill because I’m afraid I’m going to get hurt because I’m not doing my correct flip…
HALLIE MOSSETT: It's so dangerous to have the twisties because if you get lost in the air? Boom. It's a wrap.
AMIRA: Hallie Mossett is a collegiate gymnastics coach and a former competitor for UCLA.
HALLIE MOSSETT: Gymnastics, I would say, is about 70% mental and 30% physical.
AMIRA: Because Simone makes everything look so easy, it’s hard to understand the danger she’s in when her mental state is not fully there. The results of pushing yourself when your mind is clearly telling you "No" are broken bones, broken bodies, even death.
WENDY HILLIARD: So, when that connection wasn't working, it wasn't working... it wasn't working.
AMIRA: That’s Wendy Hilliard. She was a member of the American rhythmic gymnastics team in the 1980s. Wendy remembers watching Simone in Tokyo.
WENDY HILLAIRD: And she was doing such hard stuff that all of us in gymnastics, we all unfortunately know people that were on the wrong end of that as long as we've been in it. And we knew that with nothing to play about. It was nothing. You just can't you can't get around it. If you can't do it, you can't do it. And so, the most amazing thing about Simone - gymnasts will tell you - is how mentally strong she is. And we're all pretty darn amazed at what she can do, but the reason she can do that crazy level of difficulty is 'cause her mind is so strong.
AMIRA: Simone was strong enough to listen to herself and Nellie was in full support.
NELLI BILES: I got the phone and she was she was crying and she was a little hysterical. And all she kept saying is, “I can't do it, mom. I can't do it.” And it was heartbreaking to hear my daughter say that. But I knew she couldn't do it. And I said, "Don't worry about it. Don't do it. Because the last thing I need to see is you face plant in front of me on national television." I said, "I'm going to die if you hurt yourself. So don't do it."
AMIRA: When we were watching the Facebook Watch documentary and you saw Simone call you… and Miss Nellie I have to tell you how much it touched my heart to see you immediately affirm her ability to refuse. Because so often when we pick up phones to call people, it's to say, “You can still do this. You can still do this.” And it's so rare to hear somebody say, “You don't have to do this." Like, "It's Okay."
NELLIE BILES: And never once did I ask her, “Are you going to compete?” I'm dying inside to, but I did not. Because that was not the priority. The priority is still for her to take care of herself.
AMIRA: Even without Simone competing for the team, the US placed second at the 2020 Olympics.
JORDAN CHILES: In the past three years, we've gone through so much... so much like sisters.
AMIRA: Jordan Chiles trained alongside Simone and competed with her in Tokyo.
JORDAN CHILES: Still to this day, I'm like, "I'm best friends with the two-time Olympian?" Like, that's... that's crazy! And uh... I don't think-
AMIRA: It’s so funny that you’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’m friends with a two-time Olympian” Girl! You’re friends with yourself! And you’re an Olympian!
JORDAN CHILES: [laughs] She was there in a way that she needed to be there. She supported us. She literally was like our coach. And who can say, "Yes, Simone Biles was handing me chalk or giving me great advice when I was competing." Like, not a lot of people can say that.
LEXI: I mean, in gymnastics as a whole, like families give up so much to make sure that their athletes are successful. But I think there's something special about like Black families and how they just try to protect their athletes. And... I'm crying right now. And I shouldn't be, but like... I'm really glad that Jordan and Simone are together in Tokyo, if nothing else.
AMIRA: A week after Simone pulled out of the team final, Jordan cheered her on from the stands.
JORDAN CHILES: I'm really, really happy for her. She's gotten a totally different platform, and I feel like that's something that needed to happen in a way that she is more than just Simone Biles. Now she can advocate for mental health, she can help others in ways that she was helped. And it's just going to show the world a whole different side of her. And I'm really, really excited for her, for that reason. That's the reason why I started crying after beam…
AMIRA: Simone had been cleared to return to the competition for beam event finals -- with a less difficult, non-twisting dismount. And she won bronze.
NELLIE BILES: That was never the plan to medal. The plan was for her to go out there and to make her feel better about that. Coming back, that was what I know Simon needed to prove to herself that she's still... that she is still worthy and that she... that the passion for the sport is still there. And lo and behold she medaled.
Simone Biles (Archival): I’m not mad at all. I’m going home in one piece which I was a little bit nervous about... So, I’m not mad. It’s not how I wanted it to go but I think we’ve opened bigger doors and bigger conversations. Put your mental health first - it doesn't matter if you're on the biggest stage - that's more important than any other medal you could win.
AMIRA: On September 15, 2021, a little over a month after the world watched Simone’s comeback at the Tokyo Olympics, she appeared before a Senate subcommittee.
Simone Biles (Archival): To be perfectly honest, I can imagine no place that I would be less comfortable right now than sitting here in front of you. Sharing these comments. My name is Simone Biles, and I'm a... [fades out]
AMIRA: She had already spoken out against Nassar, had already helped shut down the Ranch and championed mental health on an international stage. But Simone wasn’t done using her power and visibility to force institutions to reckon with themselves. Along with McKayla Maroney, Maggie Nichols, and Aly Raisman, Simone testified against the FBI for its slow and inadequate response to survivors’ reports.
Simone Biles (Archival): We suffered and continue to suffer because no one at FBI, USAG or the USOPC did what was necessary to protect us. We have been failed and we deserve answers. Nassar is where he belongs, but those who enabled him deserve to be held accountable.
AMIRA: Despite all the evidence and all the testimonies... the case is ongoing.
JESSICA LUTHER: It's just so hard to almost put your arms around like the level of failure with all the different institutions that, in theory, exist to deal with this. It can be so damaging for people when they come forward to the institutions that they expect to protect them and they are failed so remarkably by those institutions. So it's an interesting dichotomy that we set it up, but we tell people all the time to "report, report, report." And then as soon as they do, the institutions themselves do not exist in a way to actually help them or protect them or to heal them.
ALANNA GARDNER: I do not believe like any of this is inevitable. Now that we're talking about, you know, the culture of gymnastics, a lot of the feeling that I get from it is that, “Oh, this is inevitable.”
AMIRA: Inevitable. The abuse, the microaggressions, the pain... When it continues to happen - even after hundreds of women have spoken out – it all feels inevitable. When we first started researching for this podcast, our senior producer, Jessica Bodiford, expressed extreme reservations about gymnastics as a whole. She talked through some of her feelings with mental health expert Alanna Gardner.
JESSICA BODIFORD: Cause it does feel inevitable to me. Like, I want to throw all of it away. USAG. All of it. That's where I am.
ALANNA GARDNER: But what about it feels inevitable?
JESSICA BODIFORD: It's been proven through these interviews. And it's like... the body thing, the eating disorders, the people making fun of their complexion, their curves, their hair... over and over and over again. It feels like this is a systemic issue and like individuals can’t fight a system that doesn't want to change. Like you threw one man in jail because he, you know, molested a bunch of girls. But the system is still moving, it's still going forward.
ALANNA GARDNER: And empowered him to continue to do that.
JESSICA BODIFORD: Right. There's a whole ecosystem around him that protected him. So, I'm just like... I don't... It feels inevitable. But I also- If I had a daughter who was, like, amazing, and this is what she did better than everybody else and this is what she wants to do. It would be hard for me to be like, "I'm sorry, you can't do this because.... this space is not safe for you."
ALANNA GARNDER: What I'm hearing is a certain level of helplessness. You know? It's... behind the inevitable is like, "I'm helpless to protect my child that I- You know, that's gonna do this sport."
JESSICA BODIFORD: Especially when you think about like... I'm talking about like these little girls who are like not Simone Biles, not Gabby Douglas, or Betty Okino. But those women went through it - and they're the best! That's what bothers me. It's like, if the best, if the GOAT went through it... I mean... I just don't... So, yes, helplessness for sure - for the average girls who just want to fly.
AMIRA: Jessica isn’t the only one who feels this way. I’ve interviewed dozens of people for American Prodigies: gymnasts... gymnastics parents. And there’s this tension between their love for the sport and what they know it does to kids.
AMIRA: If you do have kids someday, would you put them in gymnastics as it currently is? Do you ponder this?
JASMINE SWYNINGAN: I ponder that all the time. Ummm…I don't know.
Dominique Dawes (Archival): For me, as a mom of four kids, I don't feel comfortable having that federation as my lead.
JASMINE SWYNINGAN: In addition to racial bias, we're still dealing with a lot of sexual and emotional and mental abuse, obsession with winning and having that being the most important thing at literally all costs of the human body.
DEETRA DENNIS: It just was not a healthy environment. And if I had it to do all over again, I don't know that I would.
AMIRA: In an interview with "60 Minutes" in 2021, Simone didn’t hesitate to say "Absolutely not."
60 Minutes Interviewer (Archival): The way that USA Gymnastics is right now, if you had a daughter in a couple of years, would you want her to be part of that system?
Simone Biles (Archival): No, because I don’t feel comfortable enough, because they haven’t taken accountability for their actions and what they’ve done. And they haven’t ensured us that it’s never going to happen again.
AMIRA: Changing the culture can sometimes mean taking ownership away from the spaces and institutions that do the most harm. Even before Rio, Nellie was trying to push against the system and create an alternative ecosystem. In 2014, the Biles family started building what would become the World Champions Centre, a gym in Houston, just a fifty-minute drive from the now defunct Karolyi Ranch.
NELLIE BILES: And the goal was to provide pretty much a safe haven for anyone who loves the sport. And to be able to come here, to feel safe, to feel that you can maximize your potential regardless of your ethnicity, regardless of what shade of skin color you have, regardless of anything. We are not building a gym for gymnastics to cry, to feel afraid, to leave here brokenhearted and feeling defeated. They should feel empowered when they leave this place.
AMIRA: Nellie’s vision for the WCC is clear. And anyone who isn’t on board can leave. She told me this story about a former WCC coach:
NELLIE BILES: I recall hearing, “Oh, well... Well, the gymnasts are making me look bad.” Excuse me?! The gymnast or making you look bad? I don't think so, because this is really not about you. This is about the gymnasts. Once it becomes about you, then you're in the wrong place. You were here to help the gymnasts so that they could maximize their potential. And that's the mission statement.
AMIRA: And the mission statement is so genius because it's like, obviously, what should be happening. And the fact that you have to say it and it feels so distinct from the rest of the sport is a problem with the sport itself, you know what I mean? Like, it's not like it's revolutionary to be like, "Maybe you should check your ego as a coach and do what's best for your gymnasts and focus on them." And like I feel like for gymnastic gyms across the country, it's like what?!
NELLIE BILES: It’s about the coach and it’s not! It should never be about the coach!
AMIRA: At this gym, Black athletes are thriving.
Simone Biles (Archival): We actually talk about it all the time, us girls. And it's like... How rare is it that an entire elite team is Black - and then there’s Olivia!
AMIRA: In the past, Elite gymnasts from all over the country would go to Houston to train at the Ranch. Now, gymnasts like Aniyah are going to the WCC.
AMIRA: Do you do gymnastics?
ANIYAH: At WCC.
AMIRA: Okay, at WCC! Yes!
ANIYAH'S MOM: And she’s actually going into a more diverse gym now. Cause we just relocated from Wisconsin.
AMIRA: Girl. Did you move for the gym?
ANIYAH'S MOM: Yes.
G.O.A.T. Announcer: Welcome to the Athleta Presents Gold Over America Tour!
AMIRA: We met Aniyah and her mom in Houston at the Gold Over America Tour in the fall of 2021. The Olympics were still fresh on our minds but Simone was already onto the next.
NELLIE BILES: The Simone that went to Tokyo is not the Simone that came back. This was a person who returned from Tokyo that faced those inner fears that faced the trauma and the things of the past.
AMIRA: The Gold Over America Tour was a Simone Biles’ production performed by Simone and her gymnastics friends. And it’s just the most recent example of how she’s pushing the sport further. It’s a revamped, highly melanated, all-around better version of the old USAG tours – you know, the ones sponsored by Kelloggs or whoever.
AMIRA: So, it’s a tour like we've never seen. You know, it used to be these like Kelloggs...
JORDAN CHILES: Don't even bring those up... Don’t even bring those up. This is far from that.
AMIRA: Black and Brown gymnasts from all over the world wowed audiences across the country. Nia Dennis was there, Laurie Hernandez was there, Morgan Hurd, Shilese Jones, Melanie deJesus dos Santos, and of course, Jordan Chiles. She gave us a little preview before the Houston stop:
JORDAN CHILES: Just think of it as a pop concert, but gymnastics style. You might cry! I’m just gonna put that out there…
AMIRA: Oh I’m gonna cry I already know that…
JORDAN CHILES: You’re gonna cry…
AMIRA: Yeah, I definitely cried. And so did Jessica Luther. We cried together.
JESSICA LUTHER: Did I cry the whole time? Maybe. Ummm…
AMIRA: Planning for the tour started before the 2020 Olympics. After Tokyo, Simone realized she needed to incorporate new elements that represented her journey as an athlete and a human being to inspire future gymnasts.
NELLIE BILES: The tour just took a totally different light from there on. You know? I mean, it was not the way it was supposed to be. And then bringing things that that that depicts her mental state and how you deal with these things or not deal with these things, how you face these demons.
JESSICA LUTHER: And she did this like interpretive dance, where all the dancers were wearing hoodies that said, "Your anxiety is lying to you." And she has to fight them off. And then she goes down the like runway to the back of the stage and then grabs - I'm going to cry thinking about it - grabs hands with all the other gymnasts and together as a group, they like... you know, fight back against the anxiety. It's like this beautiful piece. And she's just meeting it head on. And she’s doing this for little girls... And just think of all the little girls and all the women who have been harmed in this sport, and then they see of all people, Simone Biles drawing a line in the sand.
NELLIE BILES: I mean, it was very powerful. So, the things that they brought on and again modified that tour, it was... it was just genius. It was just genius.
JESSICA LUTHER: Sorry... You can put me crying in the show, it's okay. [laughs] It's my natural state.
SIX YEAR OLD: I came to see Simone Biles.
AMIRA: Today, in early 2022, Simone is engaged. She’s building a house down in Texas. I’m actually recording this on her birthday – happy 25th, Simone! We’re not sure what she’s going to do next in gymnastics, if anything. There’s been some speculation – even at the end of her Facebook Watch docuseries – that she might try for the Olympics in 2024. What we know for sure is that she’s not defined by how Larry Nassar or USAG or any institution has treated her, or by her huge medal count, or even by the skills that bear her name or the tour that's also named after her. Simone has taken all of those things and defined herself. And she’s not done yet.
YOUNG GYMNAST 1: Simone Biles works hard, and she's my idol.
YOUNG GYMNAST 2: Simone Biles is really who I look up to cause she’s really good.
YOUNG GYMNAST 3: And then I saw this girl named Simone Biles and I was like, “Oh, my God, she's so good. I want to be exactly like her…”
YOUNG GYMNAST 4: Definitely Simone Biles because she’s an amazing gymnast and she’s shown people that Black gymnasts can be great.
YOUNG GYMNAST 3: But then once I kind of got like a little bit older, I'm like, “Nah, nevermind. I don't want to be like Simone Biles. I want to be as good or better.” [laughs]
AMIRA: Simone has shown the world – and most importantly, the gymnasts who are coming up behind her – that being the GOAT doesn’t mean being superhuman.
NELLIE BILES: I don't know if she even realized how impactful she has been to many, many people. Sometimes I don't think she understands the magnitude of that. And I'm hoping in years to come, she will.
PREVIEW
AMIRA: In the next episode of American Prodigies: meet the small but mighty army of coaches, judges, doctors, gymnasts, and parents – who are transforming the sport at all levels and paving the way for the Black and Brown girls who got next:
AMIRA: Yeah, like why would a brown girl want to do gymnastics?
DERRIN: The first thing that came to my mind is, why wouldn't they? But that's because I love gymnastics.
CREDITS
AMIRA: This episode of American Prodigies was reported and hosted by me, Amira Rose Davis. Story editing and production by Jessica Luther.
If you want to hear more of my interviews with gymnasts, subscribe to Blue Wire's Apple Podcast Subscription Channel. Along with ad-free episodes, you can listen to my full interview with Nia Dennis’s mom, Deetra.
Search "Blue Wire" in Apple Podcasts for access to all the extended interviews. It's free for the first 7 days. Subscribe today.
This episode featured archival audio from NBC, Facebook Watch, 60 Minutes, USA Today, Priyanka Chopra Jonas’s YouTube Channel, MLive, the Kansas City Star, CBS, and the Olympic Channel.
Jessica Bodiford and Kelly Hardcastle Jones are our senior producers. Sound design, mix, and mastering by Camille Stennis. Isabelle Jocelyn, Kayla Stokes and Jordan Ligons provide production assistance. Fact-checking was done by Mary Mathis and Jessica Luther. Production coordination by Devin Shepherd. We had research help from Shwetha Surendran, Mariam Khan, and Mary Mathis.
American Prodigies is executive produced by Peter Moses and Jon Yales.
POST CREDIT JOY
NELLIA BILES: I remember the [inaudible] and that child had the most difficult time. She tried so many times. And never, never happened. And she would always fall. And she did that in practice - always fall. So, the next step would be that the coach would pick her up and get her back on the bar and then she would finish. But, you know, this is competition, this is not practice. She would need to catch that bar. [laughs] You need to do this stuff right. And I remember, we were sitting there, and I'm like "Oh, she's not going to do it." Cause I know how it works every time. And... But this competition, Simone caught it. And I'm telling you... Well, she scored maybe an eight- She really scored bad. She had a bad score, but it didn't matter.
AMIRA: Cause she caught the bar! [laughs]
NELLIE BILES: She caught the bar! I will never, ever, forget that. We were screaming like Simone did the best thing ever! No one understood because when Simone caught the bar... she did not know what to do! [laughs] So...
AMIRA: She was surprised?
NELLIE BILES: That's right. She was surprised, too. She just hung there because it's' not supposed to work like that. She's supposed to fall. And then she goes to get back on the bar... Someone's supposed to help her on the bar. So that's how it was supposed to happen. It didn't happen that way. She caught the bar! And said, "What do I do now?" [laughs] I will never forget that!