Simone Biles is ready to go for gold (again), but thanks to the coronavirus pandemic, she’ll have to wait at least another year now that the 2020 Olympics have been officially postponed. Until then, the 23-year-old is continuing her training, dreaming about besting her already impressive historic run of 30 medals, and gracing two different covers of Vogue shot by renowned photog Annie Leibovitz.In the July issue, Biles opens up about everything from the pressures she faced after speaking out against former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar (the convicted sex offender who stood accused of sexually assaulting more than 100 women, including Biles), to the Black Lives Matter protests, her new single status and training at home for the 2021 Olympics.

 

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Speaking up about sexual assault

In the interview, Biles admitted that at first she didn’t realize that what had happened to her was considered sexual assault. After Nassar was let go from the team in 2015 she says she felt anger, but that the topic was off-limits to her family because she didn’t want to address it (to this day she is afraid to visit the doctor solo). “Whenever my parents would ask me about it, or my brothers, I would just shut it down,” Biles said. “Like, No! It didn’t happen! I would get really angry.”The gymnast revealed that it wasn’t until her friend and former member of the national team Maggie Nichols shared her story in the press that Biles realized her own experiences were indeed abuse. “I was reading Maggie’s coverage and it just hit me,” Biles said. “I was like, I’ve had the same treatments. I remember googling, like, sexually abused. Because I know some girls had it worse than me. I know that for a fact. So I felt like I wasn’t abused, because it wasn’t to the same extent as the other girls. Some of my friends had it really, really bad. They were his favourite. Since mine wasn’t to that capacity, I felt like it didn’t happen.”Biles added that in retrospect she was in denial, especially while facing the pressures of being in the public eye and scrutinized for her every move. Still, she not only spoke up in 2018, but she also called for an independent investigation into how the abuse was able to happen for so long. “For me, it was a weight that I carried so heavily on my chest, so I felt like, if I shared it with people, then it would be a relief for me,” Biles said. “And I knew that by sharing my story, I would help other survivors feel comfortable and safe in coming forward.”

On ending systemic racism

When interviewer Abby Aguirre originally started speaking with Biles for the story, the piece was meant to be about “an athlete of unprecedented dominance returning to the Olympics, where to compete at all she has to represent the very organizations that wronged her, and which she has spent the last two years staring down.” But then the coronavirus pandemic hit, and the killings of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and others ignited the Black Lives Matter protests and worldwide calls to end systemic racism. At that point the conversation shifted.[video_embed id='1984979']RELATED: Canadian teen shares his experiences with anti-Black racism[/video_embed]“We need change,” Biles said during the last interview. “We need justice for the Black community. With the peaceful protests it’s the start of change, but it’s sad that it took all of this for people to listen. Racism and injustice have existed for years with the Black community. How many times has this happened before we had cell phones? We tried peaceful protesting. Then Colin Kaepernick—he lost his job. He lost his career. They took his whole entire career away from that poor man. And look at us now,” she said. “It’s working. You just have to be the first and people will follow.”

 

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On being newly single

During the interviews, Biles also confirmed her split from former national-team gymnast Stacey Erving Jr. The pair were together for nearly three years before breaking up in March, just before she took a trip to New York for press and speaking engagements. “It’s hard being young and having that long of a relationship and then ending it. But it was for the best,” Biles said. She also added that during quarantine she’s never had so much time alone with her thoughts.“I think for athletes, it’s hard for us to be out of our element for such a long period of time,” she added. “That kind of throws your whole balance off. Because you go to work out and you release endorphins. You get any anger out. It’s kind of our oasis. Without that, you’re stuck at home with your own thoughts. I’ve kind of let myself live in those thoughts, to read more deeply into them.”

On postponing and training for the Olympics

When news broke that this year’s Tokyo Olympics would be postponed until 2021, Biles was only four months away from retirement. At 23-years-old, she’s already suffered through several bone spurs, broken toes, a kidney stone and other various injuries and is considered "already unusually old for an Olympian." In the interview, Biles opened up about how she understands and supports why the worldwide event has been pushed, but also about how that has affected her training and ultimate goals.In fact, Biles wasn’t sure how she would train at home at first. But then she found a “twerk-out” class on YouTube, started visiting a local track to do sprints, and participated in Zoom sessions with her coaches three days a week. “I felt kind of torn and broken. Obviously it was the right decision, but to have it finalized—in a way, you feel defeated because you’ve worked so hard,” she said of the Olympics cancellation.And while it's true that at the early stages of the pandemic, Biles wasn't sure how she felt about the 2021 Olympics, she's had a change of heart.“I’m starting to train toward it,” she said.[video_embed id='1991544']BEFORE YOU GO: Man yells at elderly woman over wearing a mask[/video_embed]