Director: Katie Walsh
A gymnast walks away from the biggest stage in sport, and the cameras keep rolling anyway — that decision, and everything that follows it, is the spine of this documentary series.
What is Simone Biles Rising about?
The story picks up after Simone Biles's withdrawal from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, a moment that turned a private mental-health struggle into a global conversation about athletes and pressure. Rather than treat that withdrawal as an ending, the series treats it as the start of a longer arc: training rooms, therapy sessions, quiet conversations with family, and the slow, uneven process of trusting her own body again. Interviews with fellow gymnasts and Olympic teammates widen the lens beyond one athlete's comeback, showing how an entire sport reckoned with the same pressures in different ways. By the time the cameras reach her return to competition, the series has built a portrait less about medals than about what it costs to keep going.
Cast & crew
Simone Biles anchors every episode, joined by teammates Aly Raisman, Sunisa Lee, and Jonathan Owens, along with Brazilian rival-turned-peer Rebeca Andrade. Retired gymnasts Betty Okino and Dominique Moceanu appear as well, giving the series a longer historical view of the sport's demands across generations.
Context & significance
Directed by Katie Walsh and released in 2024, "Simone Biles Rising" arrived a few years after the Tokyo withdrawal that made headlines worldwide, using the distance to ask harder questions than a same-year retrospective could. Each episode runs roughly 45 minutes, structured more like a character study than a highlight reel, with archival competition footage used sparingly and deliberately.
Where & how to watch
"Simone Biles Rising" streams on K-Time with a free account login, and the page itself is open to read without signing in. Persian dubbing and Persian subtitles are both available, and the platform's Farsi interface makes it easy for Persian-speaking viewers anywhere to browse, search, and watch on their own terms.