Simone Biles is the all-around reigning champion at the US Women’s World Championships Selection Event. With accolades and victories in her name, the 26-year-old’s Antwerp plans are afoot. Besides returning to her career home ground after a decade, she is prepping up for the 2024 Paris Olympics too. The 4X Olympics gold medalist had worked with several iconic brands in the past. In 2015, she collaborated with well-known Leotard maker GK Elite. The brand has been her go-to since then.

The iconic brand has a popular leotard line in Simone’s name. Bolstering the name of USA Gymnastics, Biles launched a replica tank leotard in honor of her athletic career.

Simone Biles’ new leotard

The bedazzled workout leotard is a replica of the Leotard Simone Biles wore during the 2023 US Championships. The exclusive lavender workout wear brings out Simone’s prowess, honoring her return to the mat after a hiatus. This extraordinary leotard has Silver Hologram SpanglezTM, Purple SpanglezTM, and a GK x Simone emblem on the left hip. It features a strappy criss-cross back design, just like the one Simone wore at the Championships. It also comes with a matching lavender scrunchie. If these are not enough, then turn your attention toward the backside of the Leotard.

Just beneath the back line, the Leotard features the most sought-after inscription, “But Still I Rise”. It seems to embody Simone’s fearless spirit. Gk Elite has quite correctly captured the essence of Simone’s prolific gymnastic career through the inscription. The 26-year-old has designed the complete collection herself, backing up her quote “One thing at a time.” 

On a mission to empower fellow athletes to dream bigger, she talked candidly to the press about the thought behind the launch. She said, “If the little ones buy the Leo, they can have it too, like ‘Oh I feel like Simone Biles!”’ However, there’s more to the inscription than a simple thought.

Meaning behind “Still I Rise”

“Still I Rise” is a poem by the American poet, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou. The poem speaks for self-respect and confidence. It is a narrative of rising to any occasion, come what may. The starting paragraph of the poem reads,

“You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.”

This is where the poem gels effortlessly with Simone’s persona.

Idolizing Maya’s values and unwavering spirit, Simone aligned her goals accordingly. In several interviews, the gymnastic GOAT has spoken about reclaiming women’s rights. She ended things with Nike in 2021 for a similar reason. Additionally, Simone’s chest tattoo holds a deeper meaning as well.

Link between her leotard and her tattoo

Besides Simone Biles’ husband Jonathan Owens and her family supporting her through and thin, there’s another element she gets motivation from. Her tattoos. She commemorated her athletic journey by getting the first tattoo, the Olympic rings. In 2021, the GOAT decided to pay tribute to Maya Angelou’s iconic creation, ‘Still I rise’ by getting inked on the chest. Hence, this was the main idea behind her leotard collection.

Watch this story:  With Apprehension for Paris Olympics in Air, Simone Biles Takes Her Next Steps After an Unreal Comeback

Since the athlete had already spoken about blocking off the haters, we can assume that the tattoo perfectly fits her. Along similar lines, after clinching her 8th US title at the 2023 Xfinity US Gymnastics Championship, Simone opened up to the press. Shedding some light on her chest tattoo, she stated, “Just because I’ve been through so much in gymnastics, out of gymnastics. It was just a good reminder for myself that whenever I look into the mirror, I see that…I get up, I do whatever I need to do.”

Clearly asserting her resolute determination to come back stronger every time, she was the words and Gk Elite, the executor. The power duo worked in sync to launch the empowering gymnastics gear. Even though Simone Biles’ net worth speaks loud, her integrity speaks louder.

Simone Biles’ iconic GOAT leotard

The 4X Olympic gold medalist always knows where she is putting her mind. Gk Elite’s vice president for gymnastics product Kelly Christman’s phone lit up one fine day. It was a text from the legend herself, proposing a leotard idea. Interestingly, GOAT means Greatest Of All Times. And Biles, who is widely regarded as the GOAT of her sport, embraced that title by embroidering a goat on her leotard. When people raised a lot of questions about the presumptuous, Biles stuck to her decision.

When questioned why she wanted the goat on her leotard, Biles replied that she had the right to be brazen because she had won the gold. Nothing beats that reply. She also added, “everybody can say you’re good, but once you acknowledge it, it’s not cool anymore. And I want kids to learn that, yes, it’s okay to acknowledge that you’re good or even great at something.”

READ MORE: Hours After Clinching History, Simone Biles Issues 10-Word Message to the World Ahead of Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Belgium

That’s gymnast Simone Biles, in a nutshell, boasting high moral values and inner strength beyond vaults, bars, and beams. The world waits eagerly for the virtuoso, with all her shades, to set the mats of Antwerp to fire as the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships unfold later this month.