Simone Biles Competing at Olympics Despite Calf Injury: 'I'm Doing as Good as Can Be'

Simone Biles isn’t letting an injured leg get her down amid her comeback at the 2024 Olympics. Although she was noticeably dealing with some pain in her calf during the all-around qualifying round on Sunday, July 28, the pro athlete powered through and delivered impressive routines on all apparatuses.

After competing on the balance beam and slaying with a score of 14.733, Simone, 27, “felt a little something in her calf” while warming up for her floor routine, according to her coach Cecile Landi. She received medical attention and was seen walking with a limp, but still took the mat to compete and earn a score of 14.600, as well as a 14.433 on uneven bars and 15.800 on vault. Her total score of 59.566 was the highest on Team USA, followed by Suni Lee’s 56.132.

Although Simone didn’t stick around long after the qualifying round, she did respond to one reporter who asked if she was OK amid her injury. “Yup! As good as I can be,” the gymnast confirmed.

This is Simone’s third time representing the United States in the Olympics. After she took home four gold medals and one bronze medal at the 2016 Games, she returned for the Olympics in Tokyo in 2021. However, she suffered from a gymnastics mental block called the “twisties” and withdrew from most of the competition, returning only to perform her balance beam routine, which earned her a bronze medal.

Her comeback for the 2024 Games was documented in the Netflix series Simone Biles: Rising. The Olympian is hungrier than ever and has managed to remain cool, calm and collected amid the pressure. Despite her injury, she was seen goofing around with her teammates in between events as she made sure to keep her calf loose when she wasn’t competing. She ended the all-around qualifiers with the highest score of the day.

“I didn’t know if I was ever going to be able to compete again,” Simone admitted in an October 2023 interview. “There was multiple times this year where I was in the gym and I was like, ‘You know what? I’m actually terrified of this full-in. Like, I’m not doing it again. I’m never going to do it.’ And then I was like, ‘You know what? I’m just going to come back another day, another day.’”

She credited her gymnastics teammates with pushing her to keep coming back. “I’m like, ‘OK, you’re right. I can’t, like, give up now because then I’ll forever be afraid of it,’” she admitted.

In addition to Simone and Suni, 21, the three other gymnasts representing the United States at the 2024 Olympics are Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles and Hezly Rivera. Aside from Hezly, 16, all four women competed at the 2020 Games in Tokyo (which were postponed to 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic).

At the Olympics, Simone has the support of various family members, as well as her husband, Jonathan Owens, who was given special permission to miss NFL training camp so he could be in Paris for the occasion.