From CNS:
U.S. Olympic gymnast and Paris gold medalist Simone Biles said she credits God and her faith for her success.
Biles, a Catholic, told The Cut in 2021, “I don’t physically understand how I do it. It (is) a God-given talent.”
The high-flying 27-year-old, who trains in Spring at her World Champions Centre gym, said when she travels, she sometimes takes with her a statue of St. Sebastian, the patron saint of athletes, and she also carries a rosary her mother gave her. Biles and her family attend St. James Catholic Church in Spring.
Biles, who won gold in the women’s gymnastics all-around competition in Paris on Aug. 1 and helped lead the U.S. women to a team gold July 30, made those comments to Us Weekly in 2016.
“My mom, Nellie, got me a Rosary at church. I don’t use it to pray before a competition. I’ll just pray normally [by] myself, but I have it there in case,” the Olympian told the magazine in an interview. Her parents have told media that they often pray the Rosary for Simone.
Her remark about her patron saint was part of a list in an 2016 article about Biles posted by the magazine online with the headline, “25 Things You Don’t Know About Me.”
Biles’ hometown is Spring, Texas, which is in the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston. The London-based Catholic Herald described her as “a Sunday Mass-goer.” Other news accounts said that Sunday is the only day she does not practice gymnastics so she can go to church with her family.
