“I don’t ever remember watching it on TV or seeing pictures in a magazine,” the athlete says, adding she learned by “imitating” other girls.
Ever since, Nellie and Ronald attended every meeting, watching Simone slay the competition.
Explaining that she has a “bad habit” of trying to locate her biggest cheerleaders in the crowd, Simone said she would be “kind of nervous” to compete without her parents watching.
“I don’t feel set and comfortable until I find where they are in the crowd. I just get really antsy and once I see them, I feel that it calms me down to know that they’re in the arena.”
The only competition the Biles couple missed was the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, where fans were not allowed due to COVID-19 restrictions. Ultimately, Simone pulled out of the women’s team final and “four subsequent individual finals to prioritize her health as she dealt with a case of what gymnasts call the ‘twisties,’ where the body and mind fall out of sync.”
Dad and his binoculars
Cheering on Simone and Team USA in the 2024 Olympics in Paris, Ronald and Nellie were joined by Simone’s husband Jonathan Owens, a football player who took time off training camp with the Chicago Bears to support his wife (married in 2023).
“It really doesn’t matter where we are, which competition it is, she knows where we’re sitting. She can hear me, I know that because I scream so loud,” the proud Nellie shares in the Facebook clip.
And when Simone scanned the Bercy Arena in Paris for her parents, she saw Owens, wearing a colorful t-shirt with his wife’s images, seated next to Nellie, wearing a huge smile, and her dad, whose face is hidden by binoculars that he used to watch his daughter.
“My dad and his binoculars is so freaking cute,” she writes in an Instagram story that shows fans the adorable family picture.
Friends of the Children
In addition to claiming the title as the U.S gymnast who hold the most medals, Simone also supports Friends of the Children, an organization that offers long-term nurturing care to kids in foster care.
“It gives them love and support, because that’s what these kids need, so to have that one constant means the world to them,” the fierce advocate for the group tells CNN.
