Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history. Here's what to know about her career ahead of the 2024 Olympics.
Simone Biles is headed to the 2024 Olympics in Paris. Here's what to know about the life and career of the most decorated gymnast in history.
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- Simone Biles will compete in her third Olympics at the 2024 Games in Paris for Team USA.
- Biles is widely considered to be the greatest gymnast the history of the sport.
- Her Netflix documentary series premiered on July 17, just 10 days before the Olympics begin.
Simone Biles is undeniably one of gymnastics' greatest-ever athletes. With 37 Olympic and world championship medals, she is the most decorated gymnast in history.
The 2024 Olympics in Paris will be Biles' third representing Team USA, having competed in the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro and the 2020 games in Tokyo, which were postponed until 2021 due to the COVID pandemic.
A record-breaker in artistic gymnastics, the 27-year-old Biles has 23 world gold medals, the most of any gymnast, and six world all-around titles, another record.
Biles also has seven Olympic medals — clinching four gold, one silver, and two bronze. This ties her with Shannon Miller for the most medals earned by an American gymnast, though Miller has two golds to Biles' four.
The 4-foot-8 Biles is known for performing astonishingly complex skills that none of her peers can land. In a 2021 competition, Biles became the first woman to execute the Yurchenko double pike vault, one of the most difficult moves in gymnastics.
The maneuver involves a roundoff back-handspring from the springboard to the vault, with a double pike somersault before landing. It was renamed Biles II to honor her achievement.
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Biles has a total of five signature skills named after her on three different apparatuses: two on the floor, one on the balance beam, and two on the vault.
Simone Biles' early life and start in gymnastics
Born on March 14, 1997, in Columbus, Ohio, Biles and her siblings were placed in foster care when she was three years old due to their biological mother's struggles with drug addiction.
When she was six, Biles and her younger sister, Adria, were adopted by their grandfather and his wife, Ronald and Nellie Biles. The pair were then raised in Spring, Texas, and both regard the two as their parents.
Biles started gymnastics that same year and was spotted by coach Aimee Boorman during a daycare field trip to Bannon's Gymnastix in Houston, where the 6-year-old then began a training program.
In 2011, Biles appeared in her first junior national competition but did not earn a spot on the US junior national team after placing fourteenth. She soon decided to transition from public school to homeschooling to make time to train for six to eight hours a day.
In 2012, Biles was added to the US junior national team after coming third in the all-around at the US Championships. The following year she won four medals at her first World Championships.
In 2015, Biles won her third consecutive world all-around title, a feat only achieved once before in the sport.
Like many elite gymnasts, Biles was homeschooled throughout her high school years to allow for more time to train. She later attended the University of the People, an online, tuition-free school, studying business administration.
Biles' stardom grew as her career progressed
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Biles was just 19 years old when she competed in her first Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Biles secured gold medals in the all-around, team, vault, and floor exercises, and also received a bronze medal in the balance beam.
Since 2017, Biles has been coached by Laurent Landi and Cecile Canqueteau-Landi. Canqueteau-Landi competed for France at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia.
Under the pair's guidance, Biles went on to win five gold medals at the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany.
But during her second Olympics in Tokyo, Biles had a difficult time. She withdrew from a number of events citing mental health concerns, informing journalists she had a condition known in gymnastics as the "twisties," where she struggled to situate herself in the air during moves.
Despite this, however, Biles won a bronze in the balance beam, and a silver in the team event.
After Tokyo, Biles took a two-year break from the sport. She returned to gymnastics in 2023, winning five medals, including four golds, at the World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium.
She then went on to win the US Olympic Team trials in Minneapolis in June 2024 with the top score of 117.225, qualifying for her third Olympics.
Biles will be joined by fellow Tokyo 2020 gymnasts Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, and Jade Carey. The final squad member is 16-year-old Hezly Rivera, who will make her Olympic debut at the 2024 games.
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The four-part documentary series "Simone Biles Rising" premiered on Netflix on July 17, nine days before the Olympics opening ceremony. It offered insight into how Biles prepared to qualify for the 2024 Games.
Biles currently lives in Houston with husband Jonathan Owens, a safety for the Chicago Bears NFL team.
As one of the greatest living athletes, it's no surprise that Biles has also become one of the highest-paid women in sports. Biles' net worth includes earnings from her Olympic medals, her line of leotards with GK Elite, her Gold Over America Tour in 2021, and her various deals and sponsorships with brands like Beats by Dre, United Airlines, Subway, Uber Eats, and Powerade.