Al Trautwig, NBC’s gymnastics announcer at the Rio Games, apologized Monday for suggesting that Simone Biles’ parents through adoption are not really her parents.
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Simone Biles helped lead the U.S. women to capture gold in the team gymnastics competition Tuesday.
When Biles was six, she and her younger sister, Adria, were adopted by their maternal grandfather, Ron, and his second wife, Nellie, who brought them to live in their house in Spring, a prosperous suburb of 55,000 people half an hour’s drive north of Houston. The tweet was later deleted, but not before stirring a backlash and getting screengrabbed.
Ron said he hopes that the attention from the brouhaha will have a positive affect on American society and encouraged prospective parents to consider adopting or fostering a child.
Simone Biles happened on gymnastics by accident-but even from a young age, she was destined to be a star. Nellie Biles is mom.
One viewer Emily Mingus tweeted at Trautwig, saying: “Hey @AlTrautwig stop calling her parents her grandfather and his wife”.
Trautwig found out it wasn’t a good move after he had been scolded by a woman on Twitter for not referring to Ron and Nellie Biles as the 19-year-old gymnast’s parents.
@Angryeditorials posted: “They are her grandparents, for heavens sake!”
When we do talk it is briefly – I want to say maybe every three months, when I call, when she calls.
“Her mother had many problems with drugs or alcohol”, Ron said during an interview with NBC.
Former Olympic great Dominique Dawes says no one has ever seen anyone like her.
All this ridiculous sexism could be why Simone wanted to go on the record that she’s in a league of her own, not trying to clamor after some team of winning men.
The Olympics are ongoing, and America’s final medal count is still unclear.
Muhammad, ranked eighth in the world in sabre, beat Ukranian Olena Kravatska 15-13 in her first match before falling to France’s Cecilia Berder 15-12 in the round of 16. Biles will compete in all four events. Impressed by the tiny girl’s explosive power and “air sense”-a gymnast’s catlike ability to stay oriented while flying through the air-Boorman soon became Biles’s personal coach, a position she has held to this day”. “It’s just been a really remarkable experience”. However, in order to get to Rio, she had to overcome a chaotic childhood.
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Tara and Dana Kirk. Tara won a silver medal by swimming for the Americans in the preliminaries of the 400-meter medley relay.
