Shawn Johnson on Simone Biles, Life After the Olympics and a New Gymnastics

It wasn’t until recently that Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson felt ready to move on from gymnastics, and while she’s excited to see the team compete, one of the sports she’s most excited to see is breakdancing.

The 2024 Summer Olympics will be the first time athletes will compete in breakdancing. While that seems like a surprising answer, there’s a connection between breakdancing and gymnastics. Sunny Choi, an athlete on the American breakdancing team, had dreams of being an Olympic gymnast and was on the University of Pennsylvania gymnastics team until she tore her ACL.

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Johnson said when asked about the connection to gymnastics, noting the similarity between the two.

Johnson is also excited to see one of her best friends, Walker Zimmerman, play on the USA soccer team, although she acknowledged it’s likely to be a “hard journey” for the American team to win gold. “But I know It’s not impossible,” she said.

At just 16, Johnson went to her first Olympics and won six medals, including the gold for her floor routine. She hoped to return to the Olympics four years later, but a knee injury she suffered while skiing proved to be too problematic.

For years, when the Olympics came around, Johnson would watch and wish she was back competing. But something changed this year, and she said she has “no interest” in being back in the Games

“I don’t really feel that pull to be there anymore,” she said.

Transitioning from being a celebrity athlete to be a public person through her social media presence has been a “massive evolution” for Johnson. She has 4.3 million followers on Instagram, where she shares videos of her family and tries out couples challenges with her husband. When she was competing as an athlete, her entire brand was about being “perfect.” She had to show competitors that she was “unbreakable” and “unbeatable.”