Shawn Johnson and husband Andrew East have experienced several firsts together since tying the knot in 2016, but taking in the Olympics as a family has not yet been one of them.
That will change this summer when retired gymnast Johnson, a four-time Olympic medalist, travels to Paris to serve as a Yahoo Sports correspondent for the 2024 Olympic Games, bringing East, 32, and their three young children, daughter Drew, 4, and sons Jett, 2, and 6-month-old Barrett, across the Atlantic.
“I’m very excited, we have yet to experience an Olympics together,” Johnson, 32, told The Post in a recent interview. “In 2016, we had just gotten married, he went off to the NFL, I went off to Brazil to work, so we haven’t gotten to experience an Olympics together or with the kids, which I think will be a really chaotic but exciting time.”
Shortly after marrying East, a former NFL long snapper, Johnson traveled to Brazil to cover gymnastics at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, where phenom Simone Biles won individual gold medals in the all-around, floor and vault, with the U.S. picking up gold for the team event. She was awarded the bronze medal for the balance beam.
With Biles, 27, expected to make her anticipated return to the Olympics this summer, Johnson — who won a gold medal for the balance beam at the 2008 Games in Beijing and three silver medals (team, all-around and floor exercise) — believes the seven-time Olympic medalist is “the greatest athlete we’ll ever see” in the sport of gymnastics.
“She’s the greatest of all time,” Johnson gushed of Biles. “… People, I think, will catch up to her difficulty level, but the gap to which she’s been able to create in our sport transcends everything. She’s phenomenal in more ways than anybody can ever understand, unless you’re within the elite level of gymnastics. My jaw is on the floor watching her.”
This year’s Summer Games come three years after Biles endured a mind-body disconnect — the “twisties” — when competing in Tokyo in 2021. She subsequently withdrew from events to focus on her mental health.
Though the ordeal itself was heartbreaking, Johnson saw just how much Biles was juggling on the world’s biggest stage amid the fallout of the USA Gymnastics sex abuse scandal.
“Simone was a huge voice in all of that and changing the face of gymnastics forever. She truly had such a huge responsibility put on her to fix it, unfairly, but she was one of the front women of it. And I think with all of it going on, it didn’t surprise me. It made me really sad that it happened that way but I think because it happened, she changed the sport even more and gave all these little girls and boys a voice they hadn’t had before,” Johnson said.
“To be able to see an athlete put their health over the competition at an Olympic level I think changes lives for centuries to come.”
Biles won the bronze medal for the balance beam and the silver for the team event at the Tokyo Games.
With the Paris Games getting underway on July 26, Johnson is eager to see how Biles’ “journey plays out” following a mesmerizing showing at the Core Hydration Classic in May, when she earned her best all-around total (59.5 points) since her 2023 return to competition, according to NBC Sports.
“Being able to watch her at the Core Hydration Classic was really cool,” Johnson said. “She killed it, she looked better than ever.”
Beyond seeing Biles potentially write the next chapter of her prolific career — the athletes seeking a spot on the Paris roster will first compete at the U.S. Olympic Trials later this month before they’re officially selected — Johnson is excited to take in the Olympic action with her family in what she believes will feel like a “full-circle moment.”
“I do think personally it will feel really special as this crazy, full-circle moment where I’m going back to the Games, we’re going to watch gymnastics, we’re going to go to the finals, my daughter will be there with me, that is a really cool moment and one will be a core memory for myself,” Johnson said.
Family is at the core for Johnson and East, who founded the Moment Makers Foundation in 2023 which “aims to find, foster and fuel meaningful moments” for families, per the organization’s website.
This year, they’re providing $250,000 to help parents competing in the Olympics and Paralympics with child care.
“I had a dream I was competing at the Olympics now, which would never happen, with my three babies and I woke up and I told Andrew, could you imagine competing, being a parent? Cause neither of us has experienced that and I just had thought of, if there are any parents who are competing who have to worry about the logistics and the burden of costs when it comes to their family supporting them, if there’s anything we can do to fix that or alleviate that, we wanted to,” Johnson said.
Although Johnson has a stacked schedule leading up to the Games, including family reunions and a cousins’ retreat, she is savoring family time with her nearest and dearest.
“I love celebrating family time and cooking together,” said Johnson, who recently partnered with Kraft Natural Cheese.
“I’m a parent to toddlers who love nothing more than a grilled cheese … I always joke that my kids would eat nothing but cheese as a dinner.”
Johnson and her family will continue to expand their palettes overseas as they continue their European adventure after the Olympics.
“We’re going to end it off by going to Italy for a week to do nothing but just eat all the good food and lounge and sit on the beach,” she said.
But when they’re in France, Johnson intends to monopolize every moment there.
“In Paris, we’re the travelers where we don’t like to sit down and do nothing, we jam-pack as much in as we possibly can,” she shared. “In Paris, we want to do the tours, we want to go see the museums and do everything, literally everything.”
The 2024 Summer Olympics run through Aug. 11.
