At the gym she is a star. Simone Biles is just 19 and already a 3-time world champion in women's gymnastics.
The teenage tumbling sensation is poised to be one of the biggest stars of the Rio Olympics this August. She is small, powerful and has the confidence to flirt with the judges.
Steve Penny, the President of USA Gymnastics predicts if Biles stays injury-free, she's close to a guarantee for gold.
"There are a lot of people that think that gymnastics is the hardest sport in the world. She is the three time all around world champion. She came out of nowhere, all of a sudden burst on the scene and technically she is the best athlete on the planet right now." Penny said.
Internationally acclaimed gymnastics coach Bela Karolyi agrees. "I never seen in my life a more talented more agile and more potentially capable young lady than Simone," Karolyi said.
Biles is intently driven. "She wants to be perfect all the time and not to fail. She wants to be on the top at all times," her mother Nellie Biles said.
She knows the expectations for the Olympics and plans to exceed them. It takes sacrifice. When she was 13 and 14 years old she had to choose between being a gymnast and being an elite gymnast. When she chose the latter, it meant homeschooling over high school.
"That was tough for her, because I know she loves friends and she loves to socialize and she knew she was not going to have a homecoming to go to or a prom to go to and as a mother, that breaks my heart," Nellie said.
"Whenever I was in 8th grade I sort of gave all those things up to do what I wanted to achieve," adds Simone.
And achieve she did! Once she decided to pursue elite gymnastics with her longtime coach Aimee Boorman, her success accelerated.
The two work together six days a week. Boorman partnered with the Biles to open the World Champions Centre gym which opened earlier this year.
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📍 HOUSTON, TX 🎤 Anne Marie Tiernon
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