The most decorated gymnast in history says she still hasn’t made up her mind about competing at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics and the clock is ticking.
Simone Biles told CNN Sports at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Madrid in late April that her chances of competing in LA remain “50-50,” with a decision expected before the end of the year.
“We’re still on a time crunch here,” Biles said. “Now it’s almost half of 2026, so we’re gonna have to make these decisions pretty quickly.”
The 29-year-old has been on a break from active training since the Paris 2024 Games, where she won four medals to bring her Olympic total to 11, making her the most decorated American gymnast in Olympic history. She said she is currently focusing on recovery through Pilates and yoga, and that mental health not physical readiness remains the central factor in her decision.
“Physically, my coaches will get me in shape,” she told CNN. “Mental health plays a big role in it.”
Biles appeared on the TODAY show earlier this year from Milan, where she was supporting Team USA at the Winter Olympics. She told the show she is still on a “health and wellness journey” and asked for more time to recover mentally and physically.
“Laurent asks me all the time, and if I have to say anything, I’m just like, ‘Give me a little bit more time to recover, mentally, physically,'” she said, referring to her coach Laurent Landi. “But he’s always like, ‘Okay, well, you just give me two years.’ So I feel like we’re coming up on that mark.”
Landi, a USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame coach who guided Biles through her triumphant Paris campaign, remains in regular contact with the gymnast as the decision window narrows.
Biles did return to competition at the 2026 American Cup in March at the Ford Center in Evansville, Indiana, using the event as a form checkpoint ahead of the next World Championships cycle and the 2028 Games. The American Cup has long served as a recurring milestone in her competitive calendar, where she won the event in 2015 by a then-record margin.
The Paris 2024 campaign came at a significant physical cost. Biles admitted she was sick for 10 days after the Games due to the demands competition placed on her body. The subsequent break was widely seen as a necessary recovery period rather than a step toward retirement.
Her record across Olympic and World Championship competition is unmatched in the history of the sport. Biles has won seven Olympic gold medals, three silver, and one bronze across the Rio 2016, Tokyo 2020, and Paris 2024 Games. On the world stage, she has claimed 23 World Championship gold medals, four silver, and three bronze, bringing her combined total to 41 medals across Olympic and World Championship competition. No gymnast in history has come close to that figure.
Among her World Championship titles, six are in the individual all-around — more than any other gymnast in history. The next closest are Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union and Věra Čáslavská of Czechoslovakia, who each won four. Biles claimed her six all-around titles in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019, and 2023.
Her technical legacy is equally permanent. Five elements in the FIG Code of Points bear her name across three events, two on floor exercise, two on vault, and one on beam, each named after her following successful performances at World Championships or the Olympic Games.
On floor, the Biles I is a double layout with a half-twist in the second flip, first performed at the 2013 World Championships when she was just 16. The Biles II on floor, a triple-twisting double tuck unveiled at the 2019 U.S. Championships and then performed at Worlds, carries a difficulty value of J, the maximum rating available in the scoring system.
On vault, the Biles I debuted in 2018 and requires a roundoff with a half-twist onto the vaulting table followed by a front double full somersault. The Biles II vault, named at the 2023 World Championships, is a Yurchenko double pike — the most difficult vault in the world, carrying a difficulty value of 6.4, the highest of any vault in the 2025-2028 Code of Points. On a perfect landing, execution scores for the skill have reached 9.7.
On beam, the Biles dismount — a double-twisting double-tucked salto with 720 degrees of twist was first competed at the 2019 U.S. Championships and officially named at the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart. It carries a difficulty value of H.
If she competes in Los Angeles, Biles would be 31 years old, which would make her the oldest U.S. Olympic gymnast in decades. The 2028 Games would be the first Olympics on American soil since Atlanta in 1996.
She has said she will be at the LA Games in some capacity regardless. “I just don’t know right now if it’s on the floor or in the stands,” she said.
A return would also give Biles the opportunity to complete unfinished technical business. Ahead of Paris 2024, she submitted a new uneven bars skill to the FIG Women’s Technical Committee for evaluation, a clear hip circle forward with 1.5 turns. The skill was awarded a difficulty value of E but was never performed in competition. Had she completed it, Biles would have become the only active gymnast with skills named after her on all four events, a distinction that has never been achieved in the modern era of the sport.
Biles has been open about the mental health challenges that factor into her decision, including the twisties she experienced at the Tokyo 2020 Games, which she later described as a trauma response to the abuse she suffered at the hands of former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison in 2018. Her withdrawal in Tokyo was a turning point not just for her career but for broader conversations about athlete mental health in elite sport.
“I’ve learned so much about myself in such different Olympic experiences that now having another Olympic year in a cycle, it’s traumatizing in a way to walk into,” she said. “But I feel like at this point, nothing can break me.”
That perspective has extended beyond her own career. Earlier this year, Biles reached out to figure skater Ilia Malinin following his collapse at the Milan-Cortina Games, offering support as someone who has publicly navigated the intersection of elite performance and mental health. She has become a mentor to a generation of athletes she helped inspire.
Of the five gymnasts who made up the gold medal-winning U.S. team in Paris, only the youngest, Hezly Rivera, has returned to elite competition, winning the 2025 U.S. all-around title. The competitive landscape Biles would return to is one being actively shaped by a new generation.
A decision is expected before the end of 2026.
