The Evolution of Simone Biles: From Junior Champion to Gymnastics Legend

Simone Biles is small in stature — just 4-foot-8 — but her reputation looms large.

The Texas native started taking gymnastics classes at age 6 and and earned an invite to the junior national team camp by 14. She had several world championship gold medals before she made her Olympics debut in Rio de Janeiro at age 19 in 2016. She scored her first Olympic gold medals in the individual all-around, vault and floor, a bronze medal in balance beam and a gold medal as part of Team USA.

After her triumphant run in Rio, Biles published her memoir and appeared on Dancing With the Stars, but she soon returned to the gym to prepare for the Tokyo Olympics. After pulling out of several Olympic events due to the “twisties,” Biles took a two-year break from competitions.

Following her April 2023 wedding to NFL star Jonathan Owens, she returned to the mat in August 2023, making it clear that she was preparing to go to the 2024 Paris Olympics.

The gymnast absolutely dominated at her first World Artistic Gymnastics Championships appearance, taking home the gold in the all-around and the floor exercise, silver in the vault and bronze in the balance beam. She also became the first African American gymnast to win the all-around title and had her first move named after her — a double layout with a half twist in the floor exercise.

Biles repeated her domination at the Worlds, winning gold in the all-around, balance beam and floor exercise and silver in the vault. The team's first-place finish brought her gold medal total to six, giving her the highest number of gold medals at Worlds for any American gymnast.

She became the first woman to win three consecutive all-around titles in history at the 2015 Worlds competition, where she also won gold for team, balance beam and floor exercise and bronze for vault. This brought her Worlds medal total to 14, the most for any American, and her gold medal total to 10, the most for any woman in World Championships history.

While reflecting on her career highs, Biles hinted that she may be willing to return to gymnastics in the future.

"Technically, if you would ask anybody in the U.S. that looks at an American gymnast, I'm probably already aged out, but I really feel like leading up to Tokyo, I was hitting my prime," she explained to USA Today at the time. "Truly, I thought in 2016, at 19 years old, I had peaked. And whenever I came back to the sport, I was like, 'There's no way I'm going to get even better than I was because somebody told me that was the best I was going to get.'"

Biles added: "You just have to push out those negative views and just keep pushing. I want to see how much I'm capable of, how talented I can be. And that's why I came back, just to not have any regrets if I look back in 10 years. So now I can really say I have no regrets, but maybe I might push it a little bit more to see."

Biles received the Presidential Medal of Freedom on July 7, which was presented by President Joe Biden.

“I’m so honored & thankful to be recognized as a recipient by President Biden for this prestigious award. I still have no words. I’m shocked,” she gushed via Instagram at the time.