Can Katelyn Ohashi Beat Simone Biles? – Celebrity
Matthew Wilson
Updated on January 18, 2026
Why did Katelyn Ohashi never compete in the Olympics? Ohashi, now 22, was once an Olympic hopeful—she beat Simone Biles in competition in 2013 with an extraordinarily difficult balance beam routine. But after a series of injuries and a battle with body shaming, Ohashi decided to quit elite gymnastics and enroll in UCLA.
Last week, Ohashi wrote an article for Time in which she described Simone Biles’ withdrawal as “not all that shocking”. “On Tuesday [27 July],” Ohashi wrote, “you could sense that something was wrong. You could feel it through the screen after her first vault.
Ohashi, now 22, was once an Olympic hopeful-she beat Simone Biles in competition in 2013 with an extraordinarily difficult balance beam routine. But after a series of injuries and a battle with body shaming, Ohashi decided to quit elite gymnastics and enroll in UCLA.
But when Biles, who was 15 at the time, fell on the balance beam during a complex routine, she lost the lead she built after the first and second events.
What happened to Katelyn Ohashi?
Born 1997, Katelyn Ohashi spent several years among the best gymnasts in the world.
Last week, Ohashi wrote an article for Time in which she described Simone Biles’ withdrawal as “not all that shocking”.
Like most gymnasts, Katelyn Ohashi isn’t tall. She stands 4ft 10in (1.47m) – Simone Biles is two inches shorter.
After telling her coach that “didn’t want to be great again” because she “correlated greatness with misery”, she was given the support she needed.
But, as seems to be common among world-class athletes, Ohashi’s journey was not without struggle. In May 2019 she told BBC Sport about verbal abuse she received and how that played into body image-related mental health issues.
Ohashi said she was told, among other things, that she “didn’t look like a gymnast” and like she’d “swallowed an elephant”.
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