At age 13, Simone Biles broke down in tears. She had decided not to attend a normal high school, opting for homeschooling in order to practice her gymnastics.
“I was just so lonely all the time,” Biles told The Undefeated’s Lonnae O’Neal. “I missed, like, all my friends at school and stuff. But I mean, in the end, it worked out.”
That would be an understatement. In 2013, she became the United States champion at the U.S. National Gymnastics Championships, and then went on to win the 2013 World Championships in Belgium.
At the global event, she won four medals — two of them gold — and became the first female African-American all-around world champion. In 2014 and 2015, she held on to her title, and racked up 10 gold medals from those three world championships.