Death of Parent & Illnesses: 6 Olympic Gymnasts You’d Never Think Have Tragic Real-Life Stories

Athletes, gymnasts in particular, get seen as shining stars with incredible abilities. But like everyone else, they experience tragedies in their lives. From growing up in foster care to losing loved ones, they’ve seen it all. Here’s a breakdown of six female athletes who have faced immense challenges in their lives.

Simone Biles

Simone Biles found fame in 2013 at age 16 when she won the all-around title in gymnastics and two gold medals at the Antwerp Championship. Her introduction to the world was with a double layout move with a half-twist.

She would have found fame sooner in 2012 if she wasn’t too young to qualify for the London Olympics. In 2014, Simone won four gold medals at the World Championships and the same amount the following year.

Her first Olympic games were in Rio in 2016. There she won gold in vault, all-around, team, and floor exercises. She also went home with a bronze medal on the balance beam. In 2024, she’s taking part in the Paris Olympics as part of Team US.

While her life seems quite smooth, things haven’t always been easy for the Columbus, Ohio-born star. In 2021, the athlete, who started her gymnastics journey at age six, opened up about her difficult past in an interview.

Growing up in Foster Care

Born on March 14, 1997, Simone revealed that growing up, her parents wanted her and her siblings to be their own people. They wanted them to take accountability and control of what they did. The star felt her parents’ teachings were why she and her siblings became successful in what they do.

They learned that even when one is at the top, you keep going and pushing boundaries. The artistic gymnast said her parents’ love and compassion for her and her siblings is something she hopes to have with her children one day.

The man she calls her father, Ron Sr., said she was biologically his granddaughter. Simone’s birth mother is Ron Sr.’s daughter. The star said she didn’t remember much about being in foster care but knew they got taken from her mother.

At the time it happened, she thought they were going to return home but that wasn’t the case. She and her siblings, including Adria, Tevin, and Ashley, were lucky to be placed together in foster care. Adria recalled how close, scared, and confused they were when they were placed there.

The four clung to each other, and Simone would run to Tevin’s room to spend the night with him because she worried he’d disappear in the morning. The star’s instinct was to care for and look after Adria because she was the youngest sibling.

Simone’s grandmother, Nellie, recalled how nurturing and motherly the athlete was to Adria. The duo had a close bond that they still maintain today. Ironically, growing up, Adria thought her sister was bossy but now knows Simone was just trying to protect her.

The gymnast’s mother was unstable for them because she used illegal substances and drank a lot. The star and her siblings grew up focused on food because it was a scarcity. And while the gymnast recalled being “so hungry,” she also remembers seeing a street cat that would often come by to get fed.

She’d wonder where her food was, and that memory might be why she doesn’t like cats even today. Her mother always ensured the cat ate but not her children. Eventually, a social worker intervened in Simone and her siblings’ lives because neighbors raised concerns.

Adria and Simone were adopted by their grandparents, who became their mother and father, and they relocated to Texas. Their two older siblings, Tevin and Ashley, were adopted by their father’s sister, Aunt Harriet, and stayed in Ohio.

When the athlete and her sister were added to Nellie’s household, they instantly became a family of six. Nellie’s son, Ron Jr., noted how his parents had spent 18 years raising him and his brother before they had to start all over with Simone and her sister.

The gymnast confessed that at some point she had a cage around her heart and a part of herself that she compartmentalized to keep herself safe. For her part, Nellie admitted that she had barriers when the two children came because they weren’t biologically hers.

Still, she did everything to nurture and mother them but “emotionally you still have to be there 100%, and I was not.” The loving parent prayed to find a bond between her and the two adopted children and one day realized she’d do anything for them.

When Simone was competing professionally in gymnastics, tragedy struck again. In August 2021, while at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and after winning a bronze medal on the balance beam, the star revealed that her aunt had died “unexpectedly.”

The death occurred while she was in Japan, with the gymnast confessing that it wasn’t something she expected to happen while she was at the Olympic Games.

In light of the loss, she urged people to be a “little bit more mindful” of what they say online, “because you have no idea what these athletes are going through as well as (in) their sports.” The next athlete we’ll look at discovered she had a rare disease.

Shannon Miller

In 1996, Shannon Miller was the leader of the US team that won gold in Atlanta. The seven record-breaking female gymnasts were called the “Magnificent Seven,” and the gold they won was the first ever by a US Women’s Team.

The star was also the first American to ever win gold for the balance beam. She won seven Olympic, 59 international, and 49 national competition medals. In 1993 and 1994, she was the World All-Around Champion. She won gold in the Pan Am Games All-Around in 1995.

At the 1993-94 Worlds, the star took home a silver medal and five gold. And while she did not take home gold at the 1992 Olympics, she won five medals, the most by any American athlete at the Barcelona games. When she returned in 1996, she got a gold medal during a team effort and another one on the balance beam.

Shannon studied at the University of Oklahoma and in 2003 finished her studies at the University of Houston and earned a Boston College law degree.

She never practiced as a lawyer but chose to work in broadcasting and offered gymnastics clinics. The athlete also founded Shannon Miller Lifestyle in 2010, a company that promotes healthy living, especially for women.

Shannon also works as a motivational speaker and is the President of the Shannon Miller Foundation, which focuses on fighting childhood obesity. Despite her extraordinary achievements, She has faced numerous life challenges, with her biggest being battling cancer.

Battling a Rare Disease

Shannon once opened up about her reasons for being vocal about her ovarian cancer diagnosis. She said being an advocate allowed her to talk about her diagnosis in a way that focused less on her and more on “what we could do with stories like mine.”

The athlete recalled lying in her hospital bed after being sent back amid her first week of chemotherapy because water and food couldn’t stay down. She’d tried around nine or ten different nausea medications, and none helped.

The nausea from her chemotherapy was one of the hardest things she faced and during the first week of her treatment, she couldn’t keep food down. Yoga helped her to control the nausea and to feel “more human again.”

She often couldn’t believe how weak she felt. For more than ten years, the star swung around uneven bars, but when she fought cancer, she “couldn’t open a bottle of water.”

The most difficult time for Shannon was before she received her diagnosis. A routine exam found a cyst the size of a baseball in her left ovary, which led to her undergoing all the tests available at the time. Her physician warned her not to undertake anything that could rupture or twist the cyst.

So, the artistic gymnast walked around like a zombie and was afraid to move. People tried to calm her fears by saying, “It would be okay” or “It’s probably nothing.” But her anxiousness focused on her understanding of what she was dealing with.

At the time, her son had turned a year old, and she kept thinking she needed to “get ahead of this” because the boy required his mother. Almost immediately after the cyst’s discovery, her gynecologist consulted with a gynecologic oncologist.

Two ultrasounds later, he knew the cyst wasn’t going to disappear on its own. Shannon was immediately scheduled for surgery, and only when she woke up in the hospital did she find out that she’d been diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer.

Her emotions were torn, but she went from a victim mentality to the competitive one she knew through gymnastics and was ready to fight for her life. They scheduled her for an aggressive chemotherapy regimen, which she saw as a tool she could use to fight back.

On a daily schedule, she relied on the lessons she learned in gymnastics to get her through her diagnosis. She used things like goal setting, a positive attitude, perseverance, the importance of teamwork, visualization, and more to get by.

Her struggles were a daily trend where she fought against nausea, fear and doubt, neuropathy, and fatigue. She also battled with finding “my old self when my reflection said otherwise with no hair, no eyelashes or eyebrows, and skin as pale as could be.”

But, through her sport, she learned that struggle can often bring out one’s truest form. Shannon added, “We find out that we are much stronger than we ever imagined we could be.” In March 2020, the then 42-year-old had beaten her diagnosis.

She also had two children and focused on ensuring that women noticed their health. The star said she came from a shy background where she hardly spoke during her gymnastics training. But she realized that she needed to talk all day about her ovaries if it encouraged someone to get a check-up.

While working as a gymnast, she suffered injuries and faced challenges. But they didn’t prepare her as much as “the mental and emotional lessons she learned from the sport.” Things like goal setting and the others helped her immensely, especially during chemotherapy.

Setting small goals is how she managed to get through her diagnosis. Her chemotherapy goal on most days was to “get up, get dressed, and walk twice around the dining room table.” It was a good day if she managed to do those things, but she didn’t do it all the time.

Having a great medical team was important to her while she had cancer. But she also had friends, family, and neighbors who were willing to help with the smallest and biggest things. Shannon exercised by taking walks, even if it was only five minutes.

During her battle, she had times when she felt like she’d lost herself and her identity, but being able to move her body made her feel like herself again. Her goal wasn’t fitness but to keep her strength up. The star said, “It was more life-sustaining than thinking about fitness as being in shape.”

Sunisa Lee

Sunisa “Suni” Lee was born on March 9, 2003, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to her mother, Yeev Thoj. She was two years old when her mother met John Lee, a recently divorced man with two children, Jonah and Shyenne.

Together the couple welcomed Evionn, Lucky, and Noah. As a child, Suni would tumble around the house and backyard until her parents’ friends asked if she was in gymnastics. Taking her possible talent seriously, a family friend arranged a meeting with a Midwest Gymnastics Center coach.

Yeev once noted how her daughter underwent some tests before the center decided to keep her. She started her training at age six. Due to her dedication to the sport, July 30, 2023, was declared “Suni Lee Day” by the governor of her home state.

The mayor of Saint Paul also made the same declaration in the city, where a bronze bust of Suni stands in a park after being unveiled during a celebration. In 2021, she was named Sports Illustrated Female Athlete of the Year, and the following year she was the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Individual Sportswoman of the Year.

During her Olympic debut at the 2020 Tokyo Games, she won the all-around gold medal, making her the first Asian-American female gymnast to do so. She is also the first Hmong American to compete at the Olympic Games.

Suni won a bronze medal in the uneven bars and a silver through a team effort. Besides suffering personal health issues during her gymnastic career, she’s also experienced family trials.

Overcoming Kidney Health Issues

In June 2021, John watched Suni secure her Tokyo Olympics spot after placing second behind Simone at the Olympic Trials. The parent was emotional because it was one of the rare times he was able to watch her compete live since his 2019 accident.

That year, two days before the athlete competed at the US National Gymnastics Championships in August 2019, her father had an accident. He fell off a ladder while assisting a neighbor to trim a tree. John became paralyzed from the chest down.

In her capacity, the gymnast got diagnosed with two kidney problems and later discovered that such issues are hereditary. Yeev revealed that her brother was 45 when he passed away from kidney failure, and her mother was over 60 when the same illness took her.

Suni’s doctor initially thought she was suffering from an allergic reaction. But when tests were done, they discovered her kidneys weren’t working the way they should. At the time, the star told them that she had “barely urinated for about two weeks.”

She was diagnosed with two kidney diseases she refused to name. Different drug combinations were used by Mayo Clinic doctors to try and control her symptoms. Sadly, changes in her treatment caused her exhaustion and weight gain.

The gymnast revealed that her ailments weren’t something she could take a pill for and feel better from. The diseases are something she will deal with for her whole life as she has medication to take daily. She initially spent weeks on bed rest and took time off for five months.

During that period, she gained 45 pounds before returning to exercising. She started wearing large or extra-large clothes, and on some days, her hands became so swollen they didn’t fit the grips used for uneven bars.

Suni even flew off the bars due to her “puffy and weak” hands. Her center of gravity was off because her body retained a lot of water, disrupting her twists, balance, and flips. Her tendons and ligaments were weakened by the steroids she took. She woke up with a swollen body, and doctors told her she’d never take part in gymnastics again.

One of her coaches, Jess Graba, had to ensure she wasn’t pushing herself too hard. The coach said the most difficult part was Suni’s brain being sure she could still perform normally when her body was still not ready.

At one point, she’d stopped training for the Paris Olympics and even canceled her promotional work. Yet, not working caused her anxiety because she and her siblings needed her to provide. The star opened college savings accounts for her siblings and became frugal with what she had left.

In 2023, she returned to the sport for two national meets, where she won medals. Being on a strict low-sodium diet at the time, her coach bought air fryers in each city they traveled to so her chicken could be cooked just right.

When the world championships selection camp opened, she declined the invitation because she needed more time. At the time, she’d announced her return for the Olympics but feared she couldn’t pull it off.

But when the athlete switched the way she thought, she realized that doing it for others was the wrong reason. Her diseases are now in remission. During June 2024’s US Olympic trials, less than six months after her return to training, she secured her Olympic team spot by coming second in the all-around competitions.

Suni’s parents were present to watch her triumph. At the trials, the athlete confessed, “A year ago, I didn’t even think this was possible,” before breaking down in tears. Sadly, becoming a celebrity caused loneliness and depression for the 21-year-old.

She often cried herself to sleep and missed having a normal life. Suni also struggled with feeling like she didn’t deserve to win an Olympic gold medal, especially since this was what online critics constantly told her.

Since her Tokyo participation, the gymnast had to grow up fast to deal with her issues. But taking control of her life, on July 11, 2024, she revealed a new initiative.

Taking to Instagram, the star shared how she’d partnered with the American Kidney Fund for the #KnowYourKidneys initiative. The athlete confessed that her experience has been a challenge but she pushed on so she could represent America in Paris.

She confirmed, from first-hand experience, that kidney disease can happen at any age with the cause not being obvious at times. Suni encouraged her fans to remain informed about their kidney health and to advocate for treatment plans that allowed them to “live their best life.”

She promised to share more about her experiences and resources available from the fund to assist those wanting to be diagnosed. Jessica Hogg is the next former athlete who’s faced a tragedy.

Jessica Hogg

Jessica Hogg is an artistic gymnast who represents Great Britain. She was born on October 12, 1995. In 2013, she participated in the Welsh, British, and Northern Europe Championships. The following year she was in the Welsh Championships and the Commonwealth Games. She’s since retired.

Jessica’s tale is almost like Simone’s but just when she found some stability as a child, another tragedy hit her in her teenage years.

Experiencing Many Losses

When Jessica was 18 months old, Karen, her mother, passed on at 29 from a brain tumor. Due to her father’s absence since her birth, the former athlete was taken in by her mother’s parents, Pamela and Sid Downing.

Her grandparents took on the role of guardians for her and her older sister, Charlotte. Charlotte was six when the change occurred. Jessica’s grandmother became her rock, but in December 2010, she died suddenly.

Charlotte, then 20, and her elderly grandfather were the only ones left to care for her. To deal with the tragedy, Jessica kept busy. After losing her grandmother, coach Tracey Skirton-Davies allowed her to miss as many training sessions as she wanted.

Surprisingly, the athlete returned after two days. Her coach revealed that Jessica adored gymnastics in a way that differed from others.

Like Jessica, this next athlete also lost a parent. But her determination and resilience saw her participate in World Championships as well as take home medals.

Shilese Jones

Shilese Jones is an artistic gymnast who has been on the US National Gymnastics team since 2017. The star from Auburn, Washington, got noticed in 2014 when she became a junior elite gymnast at age 12.

Her parents, mother Latrice Bryant and father Sylvester Jones Jr. noticed her talent when she was “just flipping around the house,” at age four. They decided to put her in a gym, but she was awful at the compulsory levels. She said she “lost everything, wasn’t really paying attention.”

But she eventually got the hang of things and became great at gymnastics. In 2018, she took part in the Pan American Championships in Lima, Peru. She’s since participated in World Championships in 2022 and 2023.

In 2022, she won a silver in the all-around and uneven bars events and bronze the following year in the same events. Her tragedy occurred a few years ago.

Losing a Loved One

On December 21, 2021, Shilese took to Instagram to share heartbreaking news. Alongside a picture of her lying on her father’s chest while he lay in bed, the star said she was “heartbroken beyond words” to have lost him the day before.

She described him as her “everything,” her motivation, someone to talk to, and her shoulder to lean on. The bond they had was something no one could break. She was devastated to see how much pain he suffered daily due to kidney disease without being able to cure him.

Sylvester fought hard and did all he could to ensure her success. Shilese recalled how he’d taught her right from wrong and other valuable life lessons. She sadly didn’t know what she was going to do without him and believed it wasn’t his time to go because he deserved to grow old.

The athlete described him as the “best father” and was happy and honored that he got to witness her performing at the “highest stage of my life.” She vowed to continue making him proud and said he’d have her heart forever.

The star concluded by thanking him for being there for her daily with the guidance and love she needed. Speaking about the 2024 Paris Olympics, Shilese, then 21, said winning gold “wouldn’t just be for me and my team, but also for my dad.”

Shilese revealed that her father had been in the gym daily, so her medal would be dedicated to him. Before losing her father, the athlete finished tenth in the all-around at the 2021 US Olympic Team Trials. She moved back home to Seattle after losing him.

Sarah Korngold, her coach who started working with her in 2022, noted how the loss changed her. The coach said the loss gave Shilese a reality check to know that she is doing gymnastics for herself.

Now she knows her reason for doing it. Sarah felt the athlete now knows “what it takes to do it because she’s done it before.” She’s since excelled and after missing out on the 2020 Tokyo team, she’s centered herself as a serious competitor in the gymnastics scene.

McKayla Maroney

McKayla Maroney is currently a resident of Laguna Niguel. She grew up homeschooled and started gymnastics because she had lots of energy as a child. In 2010, she won gold in the vault, floor exercise, and team during the Pan American Championships.

The following year she participated in the Visa Championships. She won gold for vault, and silver for all-around, was fifth in floor exercise, and took seventh place in the balance beam. That same year, she was a vault and team gold medalist at the World Championships.

In 2012, she took gold in vault, fifth place in floor exercise, and seventh in floor exercise at the US Olympic Trials. Sadly, her trauma was inflicted by someone who was supposed to care for her health.

A Checkup Gone Wrong

In 2018, McKayla opened up to “Today’s” Savannah Guthrie about being violated by a doctor. She experienced the violation for the first time at age 13. Back then, former US Gymnastics team doctor Larry Nassar told the teenager he was going to do a checkup.

But instead of looking after her health, that was the first time the abuse happened. The doctor claimed no one would understand what occurred or the sacrifice it took for her to get to the Olympics, “so you can’t tell people this.”

Due to him not saying it in a mean way, the athlete thought, “That makes sense. I don’t want to tell anybody about this.” The star explained that, back then, she really didn’t believe anyone would understand. At the time, she was part of the US gymnastics team and it was during London’s 2012 Summer Olympics.

Sadly, the incident happened “hundreds” of times and “Every time I saw him” over the next years. Luckily, justice was eventually served, and the doctor was placed behind bars.