Aimee Boorman is an American artistic gymnastics coach. She is the head coach of 2013, 2014, and 2015 world champion, and 2016 Olympic All-Around gold medalist Simone Biles. Boorman was named to head the USA women’s gymnastics team for the Olympics in 2016.
U.S. Gymnast Simone Biles has flipped, tumbled, and leaped her way into the hearts of American viewers throughout the 2016 Rio Olympics, securing her title as the greatest gymnast of all time. But Simone didn’t get to that spot alone; throughout her years of intense training, Aimee, has been behind her for every flip along the way. The two have been an inseparable pair, proving to skeptics that their unconventional partnership is the stuff of legends.
It is well documented that Aimee and Simone have a unique relationship as coach and athlete as Aimee has been there from the very beginning of Simone’s career. Since 2003 aged just 6, Simone has been under the instruction of Aimee who has taken her athlete to world dominance in her sport since her senior debut in 2013. She has become known for faultless execution, athleticism and winning confidence. At the World Championships last year, Simone became the first woman ever to win three straight all-around titles and the first gymnast to capture 10 gold medals.
Aimee has a few unusual coaching methods up her sleeve, The Los Angeles Times reported. For instance, she does not monitor Biles’ diet, encourages her to have a life outside of gymnastics, and wants her to spend time with friends. This would likely shock the coaches of many elite-level gymnasts, but Boorman told the Los Angeles Times that it has made their connection stronger: “Maybe we’ve lost other potentially elite athletes because we pushed them too far, too fast.”
Speaking to NBC after her 4th Gold medal at Rio, Simone said this about her coach:
“I always say she’s like the second mom to me because she’s been there since I was like 8-year-old, and so that’s the 10 years that she’s always been by my side.
I’m very fortunate to have a coach that I got to stay with all this time. Every year the bond gets stronger and better and we understand each other more. And it’s like she can tell if I walk in the gym what kind of mood I’m in, what she has to fix for the practice I need or how I’m feeling. So it’s really nice to have someone that can just like read me right off the bat when I walk in the gym.”
To add more to this incredible story, Aimee did not have a history of coaching elite gymnasts before Simone came along. Her coaching journey began aged just 13 when she became an assistant coach at the gym she trained at in Chicago, to help her pay towards her own gym fees. She was a competitive gymnast herself at a young age, but by aged 14 realised she would never make it to the Olympics herself.
Over the years, she had dreams of coaching a gymnast to the Olympics, but her focus was always simply on getting the best out of the athletes she worked with.
“I don’t think I have an ego as far as coaching goes. You can constantly learns things and be a student of life, I love coaching. That is what I do. Gymnastics is my passion.”
Taking Simone to the great success of Rio has been a big learning curve for both Aimee and Simone.
“It was a learning process together. So I think that’s what helped us both, because we were kind of both clueless about it, so we were just learning together.”
