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Simone Biles Breaks New Records, Uses Platform to Speak Out Against Sexual Abuse

HeadlineAug 12, 2019

Four-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles won her sixth U.S. national championship Sunday, completing two historic moves in the process. She became the first woman to land a double backflip with three twists in a floor competition, one day after after she became the first person ever to complete two twists and two somersaults coming off the balance beam.

During an interview with reporters at the championship games last week, Biles called out USA Gymnastics for failing to protect young athletes from Larry Nassar, the former team doctor, who was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for sexually assaulting and abusing more than 160 young female athletes. Last year, Biles revealed she was a survivor of Nassar’s abuse.

Simone Biles: “It’s hard coming here for an organization and having had them fail us so many times. And we had won gold. We’ve done everything that they asked us for, even when we didn’t want to, and they couldn’t do one damn job. You had one job. You literally had one job, and you couldn’t protect us.”

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