Aly Raisman expresses delight at Simone Biles featuring on Vanity Fair cover
Former gymnast Aly Raisman recently expressed her delight at Simone Biles featuring on the cover of Vanity Fair. The three-time Olympic gymnast shares a great bond with Biles. Raisman was also approached to talk about her fond memories with the legendary gymnast in the magazine’s interview.
On January 10, Simone Biles made headlines for her latest interview with Vanity Fair. The seven-time Olympic medalist talked about her marriage, life, and career ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Her former teammate Aly Raisman, who was extremely proud of her, shared a stunning picture of Simone Biles on her X (formerly known as Twitter) handle. She captioned it as,
"Goooo @Simone_Biles"
The interview also contained Aly Raisman’s outlook towards Biles. The magazine interacted with the 29-year-old through a telephone conversation. During the conversation, the retired gymnast revealed that Biles and she got “close very quickly.”
She further described,
“We have very different personalities. When I was training, I was a lot more of a perfectionist”
Raisman continued,
“Simone is definitely more laid-back than I am. That balance was really good for me; she was always making me laugh. We always used to joke: Second place was first place because it [was] too hard to beat her,”
Raisman also remembered the time when she, Simone Biles, and 200+ other gymnasts had been fighting against Larry Nassar, USA Gymnastics doctor. Nassar was blamed for sexually abusing gymnasts at the institution. He was ultimately arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment.
She expressed her thankfulness towards everyone who supported her and other victims. The American gymnast mentioned how Biles accompanied her. She told,
“But it felt like an open wound that wouldn’t heal. So to have Simone, who understood what I was going through—we could talk about it, and we could relate when I felt like I couldn’t relate to most people—it was really nice. It still is very nice to have that.”
Simone Biles credited Aly Raisman for helping her with body confidence
Simone Biles had been subject to trolling, for her height, skin, and body which made her insecure about herself. However, Aly Raisman’s belief in practicing self-love helped the legendary gymnast to leave behind her imperfections and love herself.
In fact, during an interview with Today in 2018, Biles credited Raisman, stating,
“I would actually say Aly Raisman helped me a lot with my body confidence and it just taught me a lot along the way just like love yourself. It doesn't matter if you don't want to wear makeup that day if you don't want to do your hair that day you're human too so do what you like”.
Simone Biles and Aly Raisman have known each other since their early days in gymnastics. They were a part of the USA’s ‘Final Five’ gymnastics team that competed at the 2016 Rio Olympics and won the gold medal.