Simone Biles Was Body-Shamed by Her Coach

Simone Biles is a four-time Olympic gold medalist—and an American hero—but even she has had low points in her storied career as a gymnast. Biles just got real about one of the tougher moments she endured as an athlete: when a coach criticized her weight at a meet. Biles opens up about being body shamed in her new book, Courages to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance, and in an appearance on the Today show, co-host Hoda Kotb brought up the incident, one that occurred in 2013 at a competition in which Biles wasn't performing as well as she'd hoped.

"You overheard a coach say, 'You know why she crashed? Because she’s too fat — that’s why. How does she expect to compete like that?'" Kotb said to Biles, quoting her own words in the book. Biles said that after hearing the comment, she needed to take a moment to herself. "I dismissed myself from the floor so nobody could see me, and I walked to the back behind the curtains, and I was crying," she added. But Biles, being the badass athlete that she is, managed to turn things around and use the experience as motivation to keep working toward her goals.

"Martha [Karolyi, USA gymnastics national team coordinator] pulled me back on the floor, and she gave me a little bit of a pep talk and was like, 'See, you can’t train like this and let the results show,'" Biles told Kotb. "So I went back to the gym and I did as told. Her pep talk kind of gave me a little bit of an up rather than a down.... It felt good to hear her because I was terrified she was going to be upset with me."

AFP/Getty Images

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More on body positivity:

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2. Nike's Body-Positive Bra Campaign Is All About the Curves

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Biles later told People that all of her Final Five Olympic teammates have endured similar instances of body shaming, but they're all living proof that women with different body types have the ability to be the best in their field. "It's hard growing up in a sport where you compete with very little clothing on your body and everyone is staring at [you] no matter how good you are," she said. "No matter how good you are at the sport, people will always say you don’t look good enough."

But leave it Biles to rise above the haters and love the strong and powerful body she has. Of course, we'd expect nothing less from the woman whose words to live by are: "I'd rather regret the risk that didn’t work out than the chances I didn't take at all." Same, Simone. Same.

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Now, Olympic fencer Dagmara Wozniak on her take-no-prisoners beauty:

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