We all know that Simone Biles is the greatest, most celebrated, sensational and accomplished gymnast in history. Her trophy case holds an unprecedented 25 World Championship medals with 19 of them gold.

She shares the record for most Olympic medals by a U.S. gymnast. Heck, four gymnastics moves now are named in her honor.

Now, Biles is hoping that history repeats itself. After two years hiatus from the sport, Biles is back training for the U.S. Classic meet outside Chicago on August 5. It will be Biles’ first step back into gymnastics since her disappointing 2020 (but really 2021) Tokyo Olympics when mental health issues forced her to withdraw from several events.

My vote for the GOAT

CultureMap has covered Biles for years, in and out of the stadiums. This publication was the first in Houston to report that she married current Green Bay Packers safety Jonathan Owens, whom she met in Houston when he played for the Texans and cheered him on from the stands and when he rocked the runway for charity. Biles and Owens quickly became a fan favorite for couple goals.

Biles and Owens are a true power couple in every way. Photo by Quy Tran

Biles, for several reasons, including some outside the sports arena, gets my vote as the greatest athlete ever from Houston. Sure, her collection of medals is staggering and incomparable. She has been on countless magazine covers and even Wheaties boxes. Almost exactly one year ago, President Joe Biden adorned her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom while she beamed that billion-dollar smile.

But my admiration for her goes beyond sports.

That said, I have trouble processing that physics experts have computed that Biles — standing only 4-foot-eight but with pistons for legs — can jump twice her height. That should be humanely impossible. I’d give anything to watch her complete her floor exercise by doing three flips in mid-air … and dunking a basketball. (Editor's note: We're emailing Tilman for a Toyota Center showcase, Ken.)

This is a woman who, despite coming up short on a growth chart, stands tall against obstacles that would fell many other athletes.

Biles beats Russia

After the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Russian hackers broke into the World Anti-Doping Agency’s database and leaked Biles’ confidential medical records revealing that she was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and continued to take Ritalin to deal with her attention deficit disorder.

The leak was intended to suggest that Biles was a cheater, even though the Olympics and other sports governing bodies had approved her taking the drug and the drug gave her no athletic advantage.

Biles did not attack the leakers or attempt to deny or run or hide from her ADHD.

She said: “I have ADHD and I have taken medicine for it since I was a kid. Having ADHD and taking medicine for it is nothing to be ashamed of or nothing that I’m afraid to let people know.”

Since then, Biles has been an unrelenting advocate for athletes opening up about mental health issues.

Conquering a heinous assault

In 2017, after USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nasser was convicted of sexually abusing hundreds of young American female athletes over two decades, several gymnastics stars were called to testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. Biles, who had more future endorsements and business opportunities at stake that others, eagerly testified that she was among Nasser’s victims.

“Please bear with me. To be perfectly honest, I can imagine no place that that would be less comfortable right now than sitting in front of you, sharing these comments.

“I am a survivor of sexual abuse, and I believe without a double that the circumstances that led to my abuse and allowed it to continue are directly the result of the fact that the organizations created by Congress to oversee and protect me as an athlete, USA Gymnastics, and the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee failed to do their jobs. Nelson Mandela once said, ‘There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way it treats its children.’ It is the power of that statement that compels and empowers me to be here in front of you today. I don’t want another young gymnast, or any individual, to experience the horror that I and hundreds of others have endured before, during and continuing to this day in the wake of the Larry Nasser abuse.”

Biles has real family values

Here’s where my admiration for Simone Biles leaps over the moon. As a very young child, Simone Biles and her siblings were in and out of foster homes when her mother was unable to care for them because of alcohol and drug problems. In 2003, she was 6, Simone was adopted by her maternal grandfather Ron Biles and his wife Nellie Biles and Simone grew up in a loving home in Houston. In interviews, Simone always referred to Ron and Nellie as “mom and dad.”

Simply because, through adoption, Ron and Nellie became her parents. Mom and Dad.

In 2015, a few months before the 2016 Rio Games, Biles told an interviewer, “When I was younger, I was adopted by my grandparents, which are now my parents. I call them mom and dad. Everything’s just been so normal.”

And then, during the Rio Olympics telecast, a very ignorant sportscaster named Al Trautwig mentioned that “Biles was raised by her grandfather and his wife and she calls them mom and dad.”

As though there were a distinction between adoptive parents and, whatever, real parents.

The adoptive community didn’t appreciate Trautwig’s seeming difference — Biles’ grandparents vs. actual parents — and let him know that Ron and Nellie indeed were her parents.

That’s when Trautwig made matters a hundred times worse. In response to criticism about his comment, he said, “They may be mom and dad but they are NOT her parents.”

Seriously?

GymCastic podcast host Jessica O’Beirne blasted Trautwig. “Could he be anymore insensitive and cruel? He is disgusting. How does he still have that job?

Thousands angrily informed Trautwig that parents are determined by love and not DNA.

Trautwig apologized the next day. He tweeted, “I regret that I wasn’t more clear in my wording on the air. I compounded the error of Twitter, which I quickly corrected. To set the record straight, Ron and Nellie are Simone’s parents.” Of course, now he said he regrets what he said.

Biles, when asked to respond to Trautwig’s offensive gaffe and subsequent apology, gave the coolest and sharpest explanation of Ron and Nellie’s role in her life and what makes a parent.

“My parents are my parents and that’s it.”

Sounds exactly what a GOAT would say.