Thursday, August 11, 2016

Little Girl Abandoned by Father and Drug-Addict Mother Is Adopted by Christian Texas Family, Becomes Best Athlete in the World

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These are some of the ways Simone Biles has been described by her competition, even before her Olympic debut. Biles, a 19-year-old gymnast for Team U.S.A., is already the most decorated gold medalist in world championship gymnastics history. In Rio, she is on the fast track to becoming the best in the world, again, being an odds-on favorite to bring home as many as five gold medals.

US gymnast Simone Biles competes in the qualifying for the women's Floor event of the Artistic Gymnastics at the Olympic Arena during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on August 7, 2016. / AFP / Thomas COEX (Photo credit should read THOMAS COEX/AFP/Getty Images)
Image Credit: Thomas Coex/AFP/Getty Images
Biles is able, with ease, to pull off moves other gymnasts could only dream about in a world seemingly unbound by the laws of gravity. Her routines and dismounts are so complex and so rarely seen in competition, they justname them after her.
Here is her signature move, known as “The Biles”:
Simone is on her way to bringing the U.S.A. glory on an international stage, becoming a household name for millions, and signing tens of millions of dollars worth of lucrative endorsement deals.
And to think, none of it would have been possible without adoption.
US gymnast Simone Biles performs on the uneven bars during the women's all-around final at the 44th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Antwerp on October 4, 2013. AFP PHOTO /JOHN THYS (Photo credit should read JOHN THYS/AFP/Getty Images)
Image Credit: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images
Biles and her siblings were born into a fatherless, drug-abusing family and eventually placed in foster care. According to Texas Monthly:
Biles was born in Columbus, Ohio, in 1997 to drug-addicted parents who struggled to care for their children. Biles and her three siblings were shuffled back and forth between their mother’s house and a foster home. (Biles’s father had abandoned her mother and was never present in his daughter’s life.)
When I asked her what memories she has from those days, Biles recalled that one of the foster homes had a trampoline that she and her siblings weren’t allowed to play on.
Her upbringing was chaotic. Biles bounced back and forth between state and foster care until she was six years old. In 2001, her grandparents, Ron and Nellie Biles, officially adopted Simone and her sister and moved them to Spring, Texas.
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Image Credit: YouTube/E:60 Simone Biles
YouTube/E:60 Simone Biles
Image Credit: YouTube/E:60 Simone Biles
Simone describes the moment when her grandparents, Ron and Nellie, became Mom and Dad:
At the time, the sisters called Ron and Nellie “Grandpa” and “Grandma,” but one day Nellie sat Simone and Adria down for a talk. “She said, ‘It’s up to you guys. If you want to, you can call us Mom and Dad,’ ” Simone remembered.
YouTube/E:60 Simone Biles
Image Credit: YouTube/E:60 Simone Biles
“I went upstairs and tried practicing it in the mirror—‘Mom, Dad, Mom, Dad.’ Then I went downstairs, and she was in the kitchen. I looked up at her and I was like, ‘Mom?’ She said, ‘Yes!’ ”
Here is what Simone wrote about her parents on Father’s and Mother’s Day this year:

Ron and Nellie were the first to introduce Simone to the sport of gymnastics. After a year at a local Texas gym, Biles was spotted by trainer and former competitive gymnast, Aimee Boorman, who has since overseen her meteoric rise.
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Image Credit: Facebook/sbiles
Her parents also introduced Simone to her Christian faith. She attends mass with her family every Sunday when she is not competing. Simone prays regularly and carries a rosary that her mother gave her.
Image Credit: Facebook/sbiles
Simone, attending church with her family before the Olympics. Image Credit: Facebook/sbiles
It was Simone’s grounding in faith and a loving family that has allowed her to reach such super-human heights. Her grueling training routine has always been supported by her mother and father, who are with her every step of the way.
Her schedule, according to Texas Monthly, looks pretty crazy:
In a typical week Biles trains on Mondays and Wednesdays from 12:30 to 5:30; on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays from 9 to noon and 3 to 6; and on Saturdays from 9 to 1. On Sundays, her one day off, she goes to church with her family.

So when you’re watching Simone Biles make the entire country proud…

US gymnast Simone Biles competes in the qualifying for the women's Floor event of the Artistic Gymnastics at the Olympic Arena during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on August 7, 2016. / AFP / EMMANUEL DUNAND (Photo credit should read EMMANUEL DUNAND/AFP/Getty Images)
Image Credit: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

…break records…

US gymnasts Margaret Nichols (R) and Simone Biles react to their bronze and gold medal placings after the Women's Floor Final at the 2015 World Gymnastics Championship in Glasgow, Scotland, on November 1, 2015. AFP PHOTO / ANDY BUCHANAN (Photo credit should read Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images)
Image Credit: Andy Buchanan/AFP/Getty Images

and perform the impossible in mid-air…

…remember the love of an adoptive family who made it all possible.

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Image Credit: Facebook/sbiles

Now go get ’em Simone!


Gold medalist, US gymnast Simone Biles bites her medal as she celebrates on the podium after competition in the Women's All-Around final on the seventh day of the 2015 World Gymnastics Championship in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 29, 2015. US teenager Simone Biles tumbled her way into history Wednesday by winning a third consecutive all-around women's gold at the world gymnastics championships. Olympic all-around champion Gabrielle Douglas of the United States took silver with Romania's Larisa Iordache winning bronze in Glasgow's Hydro Arena. / AFP / BEN STANSALL (Photo credit should read BEN STANSALL/AFP/Getty Images)
Image Credit: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

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