Simone Biles Biography – Charting the Journey of a True Winner

Despite being just 27 years old, America’s Simone Biles is already the most decorated gymnast in the history of this incredibly challenging discipline. After a stellar performance that saw her win three golds at the recent Paris Summer Games, Biles has now amassed a total of 11 Olympic medals to sit alongside her 30 World Championship medals.

In addition to her sporting achievements and popularity among online sports betting fans, Biles is also a true inspiration outside of gymnastics. In fact, she has been incredibly candid about her mental health struggles and willingness to prioritize her wellbeing ahead of sporting accomplishments. We’ll touch on this further in the article below, while providing comprehensive Simone Biles biography and exploration of her journey through life!

• From Humble Beginnings – Simone Biles’ Early Life and Career
• Her Early Gymnastics Career – How Biles Started on the Path to Greatness
• Simone Biles History in the Olympics – Starring at the 2016 and 2024 Summer Games
• What Happened to Biles at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo?
• The Last Word – Appraising Simone Biles Legacy

From Humble Beginnings – Simone Biles’ Early Life and Career

Biles was born on March 14th, 1997, in Columbus, Ohio. She was the third of four siblings, although she spent much of her formative years drifting in and out of foster care. The same was true of her brothers and sisters, with her birth mother unable to provide the care and stability that they needed.

In the year 2000, Biles’ maternal grandfather Ron Biles and his second wife learned that his grand children were living in the care system. They subsequently assumed guardianship of Simone and her younger sister Adria, before formally adopting the pair three years later in 2003. Ron’s sister Harriet subsequently adopted the two oldest children, creating a happy resolution to a difficult childhood.

After attending Benfer Elementary School in her new home of Harris County, Texas, she developed a passion for gymnastics and started to train up to 32 hours a week as she entered her teenage years. In 2012, she also switched from public to home schooling, enabling her to train further and refine her burgeoning skills.

Biles had first tried gymnastics at the age of six, and the instructors at a day-care field trip suggested that she continue to pursue the discipline in the future. She subsequently enrolled in an optional training program at Bannon’s Gymnastics School and sought to combine this with her Early Years’ education. From here, Biles began to develop her natural talent and start on the long, hard road towards professional excellence!

The Story of Simone Biles – How She Started on the Path to Greatness

Another key point in Simone Biles’ history saw here start formal training with coach Aimee Boorman, which she did at the age of eight after initially participating in an optional training program. In 2011 and at the age of 14, Biles began her elite gymnastics career, participating in the American Classic event in Houston.

The early details of the Simone Biles biography shows that she placed third in this event in the all-round competition, first on the vault and balance beam and fourth in the floor exercises. She also placed eighth on the uneven bars. She then competed at the 2011 U.S. Classic in Chicago, which represented a significant and sudden step-up in class. Still, she placed fifth on the balance beam and floor exercises, and 20th all-round.

She continued to excel in top-tier regional events, while her performances in the American Classic saw her secure a spot at the coveted 2012 USA Gymnastics National Championships. Here, she earned first place finishes all-round and on the vault, second on floor exercises and sixth on the balance beam.

Biles also starred on her second appearance at the U.S. National Championships in St. Louis, Missouri, claiming first on the vault and third all-round. These quality and consistency of her performances saw Biles called up to the U.S. Junior National Team, by the group’s Team Coordinator Marta Karolyi and the committee that she headed up.

On August 4, 2014, Biles made a verbal commitment to the UCLA and signed a National Letter of Intent the following November. She also planned to defer her enrollment until after the 2016 Summer Olympics in the Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro. However, Biles had a subsequent rethink, turning professional and forfeiting her NCAA eligibility in July 2015.

Simone Biles History in the Olympics – Starring at the 2016 and 2024 Summer Games

The story of Simone Biles really took off in 2016 , when she was selected to represent the USA in the 2016 Summer Olympics. Of course, her profile had already been elevated by her performances prior to the Summer Games in Brazil, while she appeared in a Tide commercial alongside fellow gymnasts Dominique Dawes and Nadia Comăneci in the build-up to the event.

She and her team had qualified for the Olympics in first place, scoring 185.238 points and finishing 9.959 points ahead of China during the qualification phase. Biles also earned the distinction of qualifying as the highest scoring individual gymnast during this time, achieving an all-round points tally pf 62.415, 16.050 on the vault and 15.733 on floor exercises. She scored 15.633 on the balance beam.

When the event started in Rio, Biles won her first Olympic gold medal in the gymnastics team events. It’s one of the more interesting Simone Biles facts that she was the only Team USA gymnast to participate in all four events in the final, contributing heavily to an all-round score of 61.833. The Americans ultimately scored 184.897, finishing eight points ahead of the Russian team that claimed the silver medal.

Biles ultimately won three gold medals at the Rio Games, finishing first in the individual all-round, vault and floor exercise events. Even in the only event where she failed to win gold (the balance beam), she claimed bronze behind teammate Laurie Hernandez and the Netherlands’ Sanne Wevers. This was despite grabbing the beam with her hands and incurring a mandatory 0.5-point deduction.

After an immensely challenging time at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (we’ll touch more on this later in the article), Biles earned redemption and added to her impressive medal haul in Paris four years’ later. She also submitted a new skill and competed on the uneven bars in the recent 2024 Summer Games, ensuring she became the only ever female gymnast to have a skill named after them on each available apparatus.

This represents an obvious highpoint in the Simone Biles biography, while the Games themselves saw another dominant series of performances from the discipline’s best ever exponent. During the initial period of qualification, she was once again key as Team USA reached the Games in first place, while she also qualified as an individual in the all-round, vault, balance beam and floor exercise finals. Biles was also named as the first reserve for the uneven bars.

The Paris Games subsequently saw another landmark attained in Simone Biles history too, as she became just the third female gymnast to win two Olympic all-round golds. Previously, only Larisa Latynina (1956–1960) and Věra Čáslavská (1964–1968) has achieved this incredible feat, while Biles’ hiatus in 2020 meant that she was the first to do this in non-consecutive years.

She also claimed gold in the vault final, having performed her eponymous ‘Biles II’ comprising a Yurchenko double pike and a Cheng. She then became the second female competitor after Čáslavská to win two Olympic vault golds, before claiming a silver medal (and 11th overall in her Olympic career) in the floor exercise final.

However, the 2024 Games were not without issues for Simone. Not for the first time in Simone Biles history, she incurred six-tenths worth of neutral deductions for going out of bounds in the floor exercise final, with this costing her the gold as she finished with 0.033 points fewer than Rebeca Andrade.

During the balance beam final, Biles also fell off the apparatus after an uncharacteristic error of judgement. As a result, she incurred a three-tenth neutral deduction for not properly saluting the judges at the conclusion of her routine. This proved to be a decisive error, and one that ultimately saw her finish in fifth. Interestingly, Paris 2024 may have been the last chapter in the story of Simone Biles at the Olympics, but there’s no doubting her legacy in one of the world’s most coveted and competitive events.

What Happened to Biles at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo?

We’ve already touched on Biles’ performance in Tokyo 2020, which represented a significant departure in terms of her accomplishments and medal haul. Although she still won silver in the team event and bronze in the individual balance beam, the Summer Games in Tokyo remain the only Olympics in which Biles failed to win a gold.

Issues were evident during qualifying, where Biles made several errors in terms of her technique and landings. Notwithstanding these problems, she still qualified for the all-around final in first place, while achieving the same in the vault final. She progressed to the floor exercise final in second place (behind Vanessa Ferrari), while also qualifying for the balance beam and uneven bars final events.

Biles spoked candidly after her qualification performances, stating that she felt adversely affected by the pressure of competing at the Olympics again and that she was “feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders”. However, she decided to continue for the time being and entered the warmup for the first rotation of the team final, only to balk on her Amanar vault mid-air and only managed to complete 1.5 twists.

The exact same problem occured in the actual final, as she recorded a score of just 13.766 with a difficult score of 5.0. Biles’ attempted Amanar vault would have scored 5.8 for difficulty, but she was unable to complete this with any kind of efficiency. She almost immediately withdrew from the team competition, citing mental health issues as the USA finished second behind Russia.

Biles bravely continued to face the press and discuss her problems, as she also withdrew from the individual all-round competition and vault. She continued to experience mental anguish and felt unable to compete at her optimal level, before withdrawing formally from the uneven bar and floor finals.

However, she still competed in the balance beam final, attempting a relatively simple routine (by Biles’ standards at least). This featured a more straightforward double pike dismount, and her excellent execution enabled Biles to win a bronze medal behind the Chinese pair of Guan Chenchen and Tang Xijing. This saw Biles claim her seventh Olympic medal at that time, and enabled her to end a difficult Summer Games on a high.

The Last Word – Appraising Simone Biles Legacy

The reaction to Biles’ mental health struggles was largely positive, with many believing that she showed immense courage to prioritize her mental health and discuss this openly. She was also credited with bringing discussions of this type into the mainstream, while encouraging others to share their own feelings and seek help when required.

This sentiment was also borne out in actions, with several athletes coming forward to share their own stories and experience of the so-called “twisties”. This describes a temporary but potentially dangerous loss of air awareness while performing twisting elements, while it’s linked directly to mental health issues and an underlying lack of focus.

Although some commentators criticized Biles and labelled her a “quitter”, Biles willingness to be open and raise awareness of mental health issues (while also normalizing this type of conversation) added another layer of importance and meaning to her already incredible legacy. This transcends the sport as we know it, while it should be heavily lauded given the difficulty of Simone Biles early life and her ascent to the pinnacle of the gymnastics world.

As the dust settles on Paris 2024, she now has 11 Olympic medals and is the joint most successful Olympian in the discipline (along with Věra Čáslavská). When you add in her 30 World Championship medals, Biles is the most decorated and successful gymnast of all-time, and she may well add to her haul in the coming years!