Olympic legend Simone Biles is a summer athlete, but she was spotted in the crowd at the 2026 Winter Games cheering on Team USA.
Biles, 28, was seen in the stands of the Milano Ice Skating Arena on Friday, February 13, alongside her husband, Jonathan Owens, while watching the men’s single figure skating event.
The seven-time gymnastics Olympic gold medalist wore an ivory Olympics jacket — similar to the ones many Team USA athletes have been sporting in Italy — with a navy shirt, white jeans and matching stiletto boots as she took in the performances with fans from all over the world.
Owens, 30, donned a navy blue “Team USA” jacket, white tee and white pants with matching sneakers as he took his seat beside his wife. The Chicago Bears player also rocked a diamond necklace with his jersey number, 36, on it for the occasion.
The couple, who tied the knot in 2023, watched as U.S. figure skaters Ilia Malinin and Andrew Torgashev performed. (Malinin, 21, was favored to win gold in the event but finished in eighth place after two falls.)
While Biles is one of the most acclaimed athletes of all time — and the greatest gymnast in history with 11 total Olympic medals and 30 World Championship medals — she confessed that ice skating isn’t a sport that she thinks she’d excel at.
“There is a little bit of familiarity around [the sport] but I would never do it on ice,” Biles told fans inside the area during an interview shared via the Olympics official website. “I give them all the props, I’m rooting for them, I’m praying for them. I’m just super excited to watch today.”
She teased, “I mean, I can skate. But I cannot do anything that these athletes can do out there tonight.”
Although Biles joked about her skills on the ice, sports fans are well aware of her gymnastics talents.
The professional athlete made her Olympic debut at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro where she won four gold medals, including team, all-around, vault and floor exercise, and one bronze for balance beam.
Biles returned for her second Olympics in 2020, which took place in Tokyo in 2021 after being postponed amid the coronavirus pandemic. During the games, Biles got “the twisties” during her vault performance.
The twisties are a term used to describe the moment in which an athlete loses control of their body as they spin through the air in a twisting motion. After slipping on her landing, Biles decided to withdraw herself from the remainder of the competition, but she still won a bronze for balance and a silver medal for the team competition.
“I didn’t have a bad performance & quit,” Biles explained via her Instagram Stories in July 2021. “I’ve had plenty of bad performances throughout my career and finished the competition. I simply got so lost [that] my safety was at risk as well as a team medal. Therefore the girls stepped up and killed the rest of the competition & won silver ✨🤍 QUEENS!!!!”
Biles’ future was unknown after the Tokyo Games, but she ultimately chose to return for the 2024 Paris Games. She quickly reminded fans that she is the greatest gymnast to ever compete when she took home three more gold medals for team, all-around and vault and a silver medal for floor exercise.
Biles’ husband, Owens, was one of her biggest cheerleaders at the Paris Olympics as were her parents and siblings.
“Really it is not much motivation you need to do, just because you don’t want to put extra, added pressure on anyone,” Owens exclusively told Us Weekly in July 2024 when asked what he tells his wife before any big competition. “I just tell her, ‘go do your thing, baby.’…As long as she’s there, she’s on the field, give her a kiss and we can go about our way.”
Biles has returned the favor, being more and more visible at Owens’ NFL games over the past season.
When it comes to her future as an Olympian, Biles told Sports Illustrated in January that coming back for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics would be “greedy.”
“Because I’ve accomplished so much, there’s almost nothing left to do rather than to just be snobby and to try again and for what?” she explained. “I’m at a point in my career where I’m humble enough to know when to be done.”
