A’ja Wilson and Jordan Chiles Know What It Takes to Win

Jordan Chiles clocked A’ja Wilson right away when they were thrown together for a Nike event in the run-up to the Paris Olympics. The gymnast was raised in a family of basketball fans—she was named after Michael Jordan—and had watched the WNBA star for years. The two athletes became fast friends. “We were vibing out,” Chiles says. 

The mood is upbeat and jokes are flying when Wilson, 28, and Chiles, 23, reunite for a conversation about a landmark year in women’s sports, which in 2024 received unprecedented attention and surging investment. The WNBA and National Women’s Soccer League enjoyed record-breaking viewership and are expanding with new franchises. The women’s NCAA basketball championship had more viewers than the men’s for the first time ever. College athletes earned massive sponsorship deals. The most-watched days of the Paris Olympics were the ones featuring women's gymnastics. And for the first time in the history of the Games, an equal number of men and women competed.

Through it all, both Wilson and Chiles reached individual career highs. Coming off back-to-back WNBA championships with the Las Vegas Aces in 2022 and 2023, Wilson set new WNBA records for points and rebounds and picked up her third MVP title. She helped lead the U.S. Olympic team to gold in Paris and was named tournament MVP. Off the court, she published a best-selling book, Dear Black Girls. And in February, she unveiled her new A’One sneaker for Nike, becoming the first Black WNBA player to have a signature shoe since 2010.

Chiles—who helped Team USA win silver in Tokyo when Simone Biles famously withdrew due to mental-health concerns—aided in the team’s gold-medal redemption in Paris. In the individual floor-exercise competition, Chiles was awarded the bronze for her spirited, Beyoncé-inspired routine, a twist ending after her coach filed an inquiry with the judges that resulted in an updated score. (That medal has since been rescinded, which Chiles and USA Gymnastics have contested.) Amid the ensuing controversy, she has relied on a support system of family, friends, legal advisers, and strangers, all of whom have helped keep her spirits up. Her joyful routines for UCLA, where she is a junior, frequently go viral. “In every corner, I have somebody,” says Chiles, whose memoir I’m That Girl comes out in March. 

Wilson and Chiles spoke to TIME about the evolution of women’s sports, the pressures they face in the spotlight, and their future plans.

You've both had a stellar year filled with so much success, but there have also been lows. A’ja, you really wanted the three-peat, for your team to win a third WNBA title in a row, but it didn't happen. How do you talk yourself through those moments of disappointment?

Wilson: Not getting the three-peat was hard. The regret is the hardest part that I've had to deal with in this offseason, because I'm like, “What could I have done differently to get a different outcome?” When in reality, it just wasn't our time. And to see New York do it is like, Ah. But it's part of the game—it's the healthy balance that you’ve got to fight through.

Jordan, you’ve been in ongoing headlines about the controversy over the bronze medal. I know that was a huge heartbreak, made even worse by all the comments online. Where are you with that right now?

Chiles: At the beginning, it was hard. It was something that I had to just push through and see where it would go. I'm in college now, and I have the ability to perform my life away at UCLA. People are always coming to me and just being like, “You're always gonna be loved.” So I'm now just able to take what I have, let everybody do the outside work, and just push myself forward.

Legally, you can't talk about the specifics of the case since it’s ongoing, but A’ja, you can say whatever you want. Did Jordan deserve the bronze medal? 

Wilson: Stop playing me. What kind of question is that? Yes. It's a no-brainer. And I was pissed. Honestly, I prayed for you. 

Chiles: Thank you.

Wilson: I know those moments are hard—and here I go, about to cry—you worked your ass off to get to that. I really prayed, not only because you're my friend, but because I see you, I understand you, and it may look different because we're in different sports, but you're fully equipped, and God's gonna always have you no matter what. And that's gonna be my clean version, because the other version...

Chiles: I already got the other version. 

A’ja, you made history this year, becoming the first WNBA player to score 1,000 points in a single season—

Chiles: Moment of silence, please!

After that game, you gave a speech to your teammates in the locker room where you said there are times that you hate being A’ja Wilson. Later, you specified that you were talking about some of the challenges that come with being a Black player in the league. Can you take me back to that moment? And since then, how has it felt to have that sentiment out in the world? 

Wilson: Being a professional athlete, people assume that you're supposed to be this perfect human being, you have no worries—why are you even complaining? You live this beautiful life—when they fail to realize that we're still human and things hurt my feelings. I needed my teammates to understand that there are days where they may see me and they're like, That's our captain, but there are also days where I'm faking it, because I know that I have to show up for them. There's days where I'm struggling. It's moments where, no matter how hard you work, it still feels like you're not getting the recognition. It still feels like somebody's got something to say. I needed them to understand that they help me in more ways than they'll ever know. It's hard showing up every day and wearing this crown. It’s heavy. It gets extremely heavy. But at the same time, I'm gonna fix it, make sure it's straight, and I'm gonna go ahead and do my work. I hate that it came out in tears, because people are like, Oh, girls are always crying. But it's real. My whole point that I wanted to get across is, one, mental health is important. If your mental health is not in check, you cannot survive in this world. And two, you’ve got to love on yourself a little bit.

Chiles: I cried watching the video, and I watched it over and over again. That video was honestly something that I feel like not just the world needed to see but other athletes need to see. I just recently watched Megan Thee Stallion’s documentary, and she went through this whole process of hiding who Megan Pete really is. As athletes, we do that sometimes. We try to hide who the real A’ja Wilson is, who the real Jordan Chiles is, who the real Naomi Osaka is, Serena, who those real people are. And it's really cool to know that you are able to speak your vulnerable self. I really took a lot from that.

We're constantly told to be vulnerable, be authentic, be ourselves. But there’s a tension that you’re both describing—sometimes you don't really want to be perceived, because that also invites feedback that can be tough to handle. How do you navigate that? 

Chiles: If I had the choice, I wouldn't share anything about my life. But then I wouldn't be able to give the younger generation something to look at. We had people before us who were able to walk for others to run. How I think of it is, if you're gonna sit there and critique somebody, try to get underneath their skin, then it's something that's inside of you that you're not OK with. 

Wilson: I'm the complete opposite. I talk back. I'm like, if you can sit there on your little keyboard and type away, then so can I. I like to be petty, because if you got time, then I'm gonna have all the time in the world. Until you can do what I do on a nightly basis, you have nothing you can say to me that's gonna harm me. 

Caitlin Clark got some blowback from something that she said in a recent TIME story. Essentially, she acknowledged that she has certain privileges as a white player, and that she wants to do what she can to help ensure Black players, who have built the league, get more visibility and investment. How does that resonate with you?

Wilson: It's powerful to me. As a Black woman in the WNBA, we have our struggles in showcasing who we really are. A lot of agendas get pushed on a lot of different platforms that may shadow us. You work so hard, but you still have to work 10 times harder just to be seen. So when we can have our counterparts speak up, it speaks volumes to me, because they're in spaces where my path is never supposed to go. It's crazy that we're talking about that in 2025, but it's real. We see those things as Black women. We see where people stand up and speak for us. 

I know [Clark] got a lot of backlash from that, because obviously we live in a world where they don't want that, and it's exhausting. But imagine dealing with that and then having to go out and play every single night, having to constantly have to worry, How are they about to downgrade my resume now? What more do I have to do in order to showcase how elite and how serious I take my job? But I also do it with love and passion and fun. A lot of people don't want to see me at the top, and that's fine, but I'm gonna be there, because I worked my butt off to get there. 

I have a privilege in a lot of different ways. I can be in spaces where a lot of other Black women, white women, however you want to see it, are not—but that's where I'm going to try to use my privilege of being a professional athlete to help others, because that's what gives me my why. So claps, steps, all the in-between, because I know it's hard to speak out on that. That's why I try to speak out as much as I can, but people just see it a different way. That's OK. I just want people to understand that when people can speak up about us as Black women in rooms that we may not be in, that means a lot. Because it's a little piece of us in there—they can hold that door open for us to walk through. So I'm grateful. 

I also want to talk about the evolving image and inclusivity of gymnastics. Jordan, you were part of a big moment in Paris, when you, Simone Biles, and Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade all received medals for floor exercise and made up the first all-Black podium in Olympic gymnastics. How have you seen the sport change since you started?

Chiles: The diversity in our sport has obviously changed a lot. Knowing there weren't a lot of women of color when I was younger, and knowing that I can help that—and I've been helping that—is really cool. That all-Black podium was just the beginning of something that will hopefully continue, not just within our sport, but within sports in general. It's always going to be in history books, no matter what, and I really appreciate knowing that I was a part of that. Having two icons, two legends that you looked up to ever since you were younger, and you're on that podium with them, it just makes it more memorable.

A’ja, what would it take for there to be true equity between WNBA and NBA?

Wilson: A lot. We would have to switch body parts. I've seen a lot of comments like, Oh, your sport doesn't matter. And I'm like, but you're a basketball fan. That doesn't make sense to me. For us to get a little equity in that sense, realistically, it will take a shift of the world. It will take a shift of society to understand that we are all, both leagues, great at what we do. 

We can't worry about constantly having to work to be equal. We're gonna do it with what we have now and showcase why we are the greatest. Yeah, I would love for my bank account to look like an NBA player's, but realistically, will it ever get there? I don't know. But what I do know is what I got now and how I can continue just to spread that out to young girls, so then when they get up and want to play in the W, maybe the accounts will look the same. 

I heard a podcast. It was a former NBA player...

Wilson: Oh, the one-on-one thing?

Yes, Jeff Teague was saying on the Club 520 podcast that you would not be able to beat any man in the NBA one-on-one, since you told the Knicks’ Josh Hart on his show that you thought you could beat him. What do you think about that?

Wilson: I said it in a way, to a great friend of mine, Josh Hart, in a sense of just a competitor, and I don't think Josh saw it in any disrespect. I could look anyone in the eye, and I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna beat you, because that's the competitor in me. I have random little guys in my DMs, like, Oh my God, you are delusional for thinking that. Am I? OK, I could be a little delulu, but I'm still gonna believe in me. 

Would you ever do a Battle of the Sexes-type Billie Jean King vs. Bobby Riggs game?

Wilson: I don't really care for too much of that, because it's one of those situations where you’re damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you win, they're gonna have an excuse for it. If you lose, they're gonna be like, Duh, you look dumb for doing that. But if we do a little two-on-two, I do got my partner.

Why did you decide not to participate in Unrivaled?

Wilson: I like to enjoy my offseason. That's my time to really just decompress. Unrivaled seems great—my teammates are loving it. Obviously, the money in it is amazing. And it's like, Dang, missing out. But wholeheartedly, not even trying to front, I just didn't want to. I just want to protect my peace. Because once the season gets in, no one's gonna think, Oh, you just got done playing Unrivaled, let's take it easy.

Would you ever play for a different WNBA team?

Wilson: I don't want to. That's more of a front-office question, but Vegas will forever be my home. I was their first draft pick ever of the franchise, so they really brought me in. And the things that we've done—straight out the gate, we set the standard for the league to follow, and we put a lot of other franchises in the league on their heels. If I could retire an Ace, I would love to. I don't see myself putting on any different jersey. 

Are we going to see you in L.A. for the 2028 Olympics?

Chiles: Why are you looking at me? She asked you!

Wilson: She asked both!

Chiles: Mine's not a yes and mine's not a no. 

Wilson: Mine is a better—you better. 

Chiles: Period. 

Wilson: She's gonna be there too. See us in L.A.

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Styled by Jessie DuBois; hair by Myesha Jamerson; make-up by Regina Craig; production by Crawford & Co. Productions