Simone Biles' boyfriend Jonathan Owens shares the sweetest message of support following her withdrawal

Simone Biles has received an incredible outpouring of love and support from her sponsors, fans, celebrities, former Olympians, and more since announcing her decision to withdraw from the team and individual all-around finals at the Tokyo Olympics. The sweetest one of them all came Thursday from the 25-year-old's boyfriend, NFL player Jonathan Owens, who took to Instagram to express his unwavering support for her. "Imma ride with you through whatever baby," the 26-year-old Houston Texans safety captioned his touching post. "Your strength and courage is unmatched and you inspire me more and more every day SB."

"You always gone be my champ baby and don't you ever forget that, I love you so much and I can't wait till you come home and I get to see that beautiful smile again. You know I'm always here for you baby," Owens added, sharing some cute snaps of the couple together with some gorgeous portraits of his talented girlfriend. According to Texas Monthly, the athletes have been dating since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, after meeting one another on social media. "We ended up hanging out right before the pandemic," Owens said.

"It was one of the few times in her life where everything was just shut off and she couldn't do anything," he added. "So we used it to get to know each other—really get to know each other. It created our bond and made it stronger. Now I'm so thankful. Her energy is something. She's always happy, giggly, bubbly. If I've had a tough day at the office, I wouldn't want to take that home to her. Her personality, man... This was a match made in heaven. There's no better person for me."

"She loves me, she's so affectionate," Owens gushed about Biles. "I just love that. And it's just intoxicating seeing how much work she puts into everything." He revealed that being able to understand and empathize with the ups and downs of sports at the highest level is a unique aspect of their relationship. "We talk all the time about that, just the pressure she goes through," he said. "I try to be her motivating factor whenever I sense that she's kind of maybe getting down on herself. If practice was a little rough, or your body may not be feeling great right now."

"She's doing the same with me. She'll be telling me, 'Don't be a baby, you're all right.' We're both super competitive. When I see her getting up and going to practice every morning, it motivates me even more," Owens continued. "It's a great feeling when the person you're in a relationship with understands what you're going through. There are nights we'll both be on the couch in NormaTec [compression] boots because we both had a hard day. It's great to come home and get away from all the outside noise. We don't even talk about the sport too much. We'll just have regular conversations, just kind of read each other's minds."

Owens also admitted at the time that he had never heard of the legendary gymnast before he came across her profile on social media. "I didn't know who she was," he said. "I just hadn't heard of her, and when I told her that, that's one of the things she liked." In his ignorance, he also underestimated what Biles does on the competition floor. "It took me a while to come to grips with how hard her sport was," Owens said. "When we were first together, I was like, 'Man, you can't come outside and guard these wide receivers. Gymnastics is not that hard.'" Then he saw his girlfriend compete. "Unbelievable," he said. "It's so amazing to watch. When I saw her for the first time, I realized that the TV really doesn't do it justice. When she goes out there and does it, it looks so effortless."