Simone Biles’ mom couldn’t help but smile during her dominant performance on Friday, June 28, during Day 2 of the 2024 U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials.
The seven-time Olympic medalist, 27, ended the first half of the women’s qualifying in first place, overcoming some wobbles in the beam event with rousing showings on the floor, on the bars and on vault.
Biles was cheered on from the stands by her mother, Nellie, and her husband, Chicago Bears player Jonathan Owens, at the Target Center in Minneapolis.
Nellie was seen beaming after Biles finished her first-place floor routine.
Owens posted a series of celebratory updates to his Instagram, including touting Biles’ “good lead” going into the rest of the trials.
Nellie and Biles’ dad, Ronald, have attended all of her competitions, except the 2020 Tokyo Games when Olympic officials restricted spectators due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In conversation with author Brené Brown at the 2022 Simmons Leadership Conference, Biles said not having her parents there with her made the experience very difficult.
“We go over to Tokyo and no audience is allowed, we’re quarantined in our rooms, and can only come out for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Everyone expected us to perform in a certain manner. There was no camaraderie, and my parents weren’t able to go there,” Biles said. “My parents haven’t missed a competition in my life.”
“For the world to expect some of these athletes to go above and beyond when we’re all going through the same thing and trying to survive a pandemic was really strange for me mentally,” she added.
Before Biles left for the 2020 Games, Nellie told PEOPLE that Biles “thrives” on the crowd and having her family with her for support.
“She always knows where we are sitting, it doesn’t matter the arena. If she’s in a competition, she’ll look and I’ll wave and we make a connection,” Nellie said then.
Biles’ expected qualification for the 2024 Olympic Games comes three years after she decided to withdraw from several events at the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games to focus on her mental health.
Speaking on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast with Alex Cooper, the Olympic gymnast said she experienced a case of the “twisties,” which are best described as a mental block where gymnasts lose their ability to sense their body movements in the air, putting them at risk of injury upon landing.
“Your body is going to try to do something, and your mind is like, ‘No, you’re not doing this, you’re going to open out, you’re going to do this’ … You’ve been doing something for so long and you now no longer have control,” Biles said. “I was fighting my body and my mind to do these tricks.”
The two-time Olympic athlete took a two-year break before returning to the sport in 2023 in the U.S. Classic, U.S. National Championships and World Championships. Biles soon became the most decorated male or female gymnast ever after winning 37 overall medals across the Olympics and the world championships.
Should she make the U.S. team in 2024, she would join Muriel Grossfeld, Linda Metheny and Dominique Dawes as the only American female gymnasts to compete in three Olympic Games.
