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Simone Biles Sends Strong Message to Fellow U.S. Olympic Star After Emotional Admission

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Nathan Dougherty | Last updated May 30, 2025 7:47 PM ET

Simone Biles has long been an advocate for mental health awareness, and now she's showing her support to a fellow U.S. Olympic star after an emotional admission about her struggles with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Two-time gold medalist Mikaela Shiffrin revealed that she had been diagnosed with PTSD after a pair of crashes on the slopes. Shiffrin, who lost her father to an accident in 2020, said the traumas built and made it hard for her to compete.

"Those two crashes maybe built on one another," Shiffrin wrote for The Players' Tribune. "I talked with my therapist about that, and she let me know that past trauma, or a history of traumatic events, can sometimes affect your reaction to new traumatic events."

"Maybe when I crashed and got that puncture wound, maybe that was kind of a perfect-storm situation for PTSD to take hold. But who knows, really. With all this stuff, there’s just a ton of nuance, and so much that we don’t know for certain."

“We talk about viewing the world like you have a film over your eyes, like everything’s a little bit darker or there’s a layer of grease on everything.”@MikaelaShiffrin details her new reality after being diagnosed with PTSD. https://t.co/8FHYx9Zs63 pic.twitter.com/556BtZrDSk
— The Players’ Tribune (@PlayersTribune) May 30, 2025

Biles sent Shiffrin a strong message of support, sharing a post about the gold medalist in her Instagram stories along with a trio of bandaged hearts.

Biles has been an advocate for mental health awareness, especially after her withdrawal from the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo after suffering anxiety and what is known as the "twisties," a condition that caused her to lose orientation and control while flying through the air.

Like Shiffrin, Biles has been an adovcate for therapy and said it helped her get back on track and able to return for the 2024 Olympics in Paris.

“In the beginning, I think the hardest part is logging on to my therapy sessions and convincing myself to go,” Biles told Olympics.com in an interview last year. “But as soon as I see my therapist and we start talking, it’s like I’m yapping the whole time. I’m so grateful for that.”

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

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