December is the month for Harper’s Bazaar country-specific WOTY [Women of the Year] 2025 awards for women who inspire. AOC opens with Harper’s Bazaar Spain’s [IG] selection of Simone Biles for the Sport Icon Award.

Claudia Laukamp styles Biles in images by JUANKR [IG]. / Hair by Fernando Torrent

Simone Biles: Champion for Women

Simone Biles has 11 Olympic medals — 7 gold, with 2 in Paris 2024 — and 30 World Championship medals, making her the most decorated gymnast in history. Asked if she’s headed back to the Summer 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, Biles, age 28, has no comment.

Harper’s Bazaar Spain emphasizes that the 2025 WOTY winners have shared traits that include empathy, sorority, overcoming and the defense of the rights of the most vulnerable. All the winners have embraced their vulnerability and “turned their wounds into feats of courage”.

Twisties Twice

In the case of Simone Biles, the athlete’s sudden case of “the twisties”, a mental block that caused her mind and body to disconnect during her execution of the high-complexity, high-risk for neck-breaking Yurchenko double pike suddenly derailed her at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

A year later, the world learned from her longtime coach Aimee Boorman, that this debilitating condition hit Biles three months after the World Gymnastics Championships in 2015, during which she took home four gold medals.

No one needed to know about the episode, as it happened post major tournament. But the athlete’s “twisties” only cleared in time for the Olympic trials that advanced Biles to the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro. When “the twisties” hit Biles again at the Covid-delayed Tokyo games, she ended up taking two years off and going into serious therapy.

Let’s just say that men, in particular, were savagely unkind to Simone Biles — basically calling her a national disgrace and a “chicken” or far worse for her hoax claim of “twisties” at the Tokyo Olympics.

The Larry Nasser Case

Perhaps related — and perhaps not related at all — Simone Biles testified before Congress on September 15, 2021, about 5 weeks after the Tokyo Olympics ended in the Larry Nasser case of sexual abuse by the doctor of women gymnasts.

In the light of the current Jeffrey Epstein scandal, where survivors have come forward, the FBI also dropped the ball in the Nasser case — along with other institutions like Michigan State University. The U.S. Department of Justice (on behalf of the FBI) agreed to pay $138.7 million to 139 victims for the FBI's failure to adequately investigate allegations when they first received them in 2015. Total payouts by multiple institutions exceeded $1 billion.

In the case of Simone Biles, she is a model of women who have embraced their vulnerability and “turned their wounds into feats of courage”.

Life is good today for Biles. She is married to NFL player Jonathan Owens, joining him in the gym for Pilates at their home-in-progress in Houston or in Chicago, where Owens plays for the Bears. The superstar has also taken up horseback riding — and it’s a love affair.

Simone Biles at Athleta

In advance of the delayed 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the gymnast left her Nike sponsorship to join Athleta, a division of The GAP. Athleta developed an activewear line with Biles — and all reports are that it’s selling well.

Athleta itself has undergone challenges and a turn-around plan is in progress that’s delivering good results.

Richard Dickson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Gap Inc left his role as President and Chief Operating Officer of Mattel on August 22, 2023. By most measures Dickson has been highly-effective at Gap Inc. in its reinvention operations.

Earlier in 2025, Dickson said that Athleta’s challenges are related to frivilous [AOC’s word] fashion styles in a product category and business embedded in performance, comfort and technology — not fashion. For all of its challenges, Athleta is the #3 business in its category.

AOC researched extensively before writing this post, and there’s no suggestion of any lack of support for Simone Biles and her very visible and involved role at Athleta.

Maggie Gauger became Athleta’s new president and CEO on August 1. Gauger, comes to Athleta with more than 20 years of experience in key leadership roles at Nike, most recently serving as the head of its North America Women's Business.