Simone Biles is the world best gymnast… She made history as she won the gold medal during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games at the Bercy Arena in Paris.
Simone Biles holds her gold medal during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Bercy Arena in Paris, on Tuesday.
Simone Biles won her eighth Olympic gold medal in the Olympics all-around final Thursday, making her the most decorated U.S. gymnast of all time.A couple of weeks ago, ESPN put together a list of the top 100 athletes of the 21st century.
It’s the sort of clickbait designed to get talking heads arguing during a long summer. And there’s plenty to debate — I’d say Kobe Bryant and Floyd Mayweather are too high and Diana Taurasi and Barry Bonds are too low — but what I found most fascinating about the list was its top 10.
With a quarter of the century gone, only three are still active: Lionel Messi (No. 3), LeBron James (No. 4) and Simone Biles (No. 7). Everybody else designated the top of the top is retired. And with all due respect to Messi and LeBron, both are in the valedictory periods of their careers: Neither is the best player in his sport anymore, and their grandest accomplishments are behind them.
But Biles? Well, Biles has a way of making you still feel like she’s just getting started. The numbers get so high, in fact, that they almost become difficult to comprehend.On Tuesday, in a return to the Olympic women’s team final — the event she famously withdrew from four years ago after suffering from what she called “the twisties” — Biles helped lead Team USA to its fourth women’s team gold medal ever and its third in the last four Olympics. It was a joyous moment for Biles and her teammates and a very strong start to Biles’ so-called redemption tour after she took two years off in the wake of her Tokyo Games collapse.
Team USA is back on the top of the world again. Which means, of course, Biles is, as well.It’s Biles’ fifth Olympic gold and the eighth Olympic medal of her career, which makes her the most decorated gymnast in U.S. history. (She already has more golds than any other U.S. gymnast in history.)
She’s now only three medals behind track star Allyson Felix for the most non-swimming Olympic medals in U.S. history. She also has three more chances this Olympics, in the vault, the balance beam and the floor exercise, to add to her total. Indeed, her floor routine is perhaps the most anticipated event of these whole Olympics.
And that’s just her Olympic titles. When you add in world championships, she has a total of 38 medals, making her the most decorated gymnast in the history of the sport. The numbers keep going up.
