Simone Biles Bio And Facts

Simone Biles

Simone Biles is the most decorated and arguably the most talented gymnast of all time. She is known for her wide smile and incredible skills she effortlessly performs in competition. Biles has broken several records in the sport of gymnastics and pushed the sport’s limits throughout her athletic career. She also made history as the first African-American woman to be the All-Around World Champion.

Simone Biles became a household name at the Rio 2016 Olympics where she impressed viewers with her unmatched skills and energy. She and Katie Ledecky were both the Most Decorated Female Athletes of the 2016 Games. During these Games, Biles won four gold medals and one bronze. She was the fifth female gymnast to win four titles at one game. Biles has continued training and competing in gymnastics and hopes to make another Olympic appearance at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games. After these games, she plans on retiring.

Born: March 14th, 1997 (14-03-1997)
Education: University of the People
Net Worth: $4 Million
Occupation: Professional Gymnast
Height: 4’ 8” (1.42 meters)
Weight: 104 Pounds (47 kg)
Position: All-Around Gymnast
Years Active: 2003 - Current (17)
Nicknames: $imoney
Teams: USA Gymnastics

Gymnastics Career

Simone Biles first got into gymnastics at age six. She began formally training two years later. Her first standout win came in 2012 when she competed in the US Classic in Chicago and won Gold for All-Around and Vault. She won her first All-Around World Championship in 2013 and since then has remained undefeated for winning the All-Around medal at every World Competition she’s competed in. Biles has won the most All-Around World Championships of any female ever with five wins. She is also the most decorated World Championship gymnast of all time after bringing her medal tally up to 25 in 2019.

In addition to these 25 medals, Biles also won five additional medals at the Olympics. One of her most impressive feats has been the margin she often wins by. At the Olympics, she won the All-Around title by 2.1 points. This was larger than the combined margins of victory for the All-Around title from 1980-2012. If all of this isn’t impressive enough, she also has four original moves named after her that are some of the most difficult to execute in gymnastics.

Titles and Awards

Aside from all of her achievements in the sport, Simone Biles has had numerous other recognitions for her talents. One of her first awards came in 2014 when she was the 2014 Women’s Sports Foundation’s “Sportswoman of the Year.” Then, in 2015, the USOC named her the Olympic Athlete of the Year.

After the Olympics, Biles won many awards in 2016 for her incredible performance. In 2016 she was named the Associated Press’s Female Athlete of the year, the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Sports Favorite Newcomer, BBC Overseas Sports Personality of the Year, and Glamour’s “The Record Breaker” Woman of the Year. Additionally she won a Shorty Award for Best in Sports and was named one of the most influential people worldwide by TIME Magazine. More recently, in 2019 she was named the AP Female Athlete of the Year, Team USA’s Female Olympic Athlete of the Year, and won the “Game Changer” People’s Choice Award.

Personal Life

Simone was born in Columbus, Ohio but grew up in Texas. She has a younger sister and two older brothers. Her mother struggled with addiction which led to Simone and her siblings going in and out of foster care homes. Simone’s grandparents, Ron and Nellie Biles eventually adopted her and her younger sister. As a kid she loved jumping around so she easily took to gymnastics and quickly enrolled in Bannon’s Gymnastics. Biles became very devoted to the sport and ended up being home schooled in order to compete in gymnastics. Simone Biles wrote an autobiography in 2016 called Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance which was later made into a movie.

Biles has had to overcome a lot throughout her career. In 2018, Biles announced that she had been a victim of sexual assault by Larry Nassar, the USA Gymnastics team doctor. In 2019 she was shocked to learn that her brother was arrested on accounts for homicide charges.

Fun Facts

Competed in the 2016 Olympics with the Final Five. They chose this name since the next Olympic competition would feature only four athletes on a team.
Biles has Belizean citizenship due to her mother’s heritage. She loves fishing in Belize.
Biles admitted to having a huge crush on actor Zac Efron during the 2016 Olympics so he flew to Brazil and surprised her during an interview.
With 19 gold medals, she has won more than any other gymnast.
Competed on Dancing with the Stars in 2017 and placed fourth.
She has four German Shepherds named Atlas, Bella, Lily, and Maggie.
Out of all the 555 USA Olympic Athletes in Rio, Simone Biles was the shortest.
Her favorite Olympic area to compete in is the Floor Routine.
Biles originally wanted to go to UCLA for college, but didn’t want to give up on gymnastics so she enrolled in the University of the People where she could do classes online.

FAQ

What are the moves named after Simone Biles?

There are four moves that Simone Biles was the first to land. The first is the Biles on the vault. This move is a roundoff back handspring, and two Yurenchenko twists. There’s also a Biles floor exercise skill which is a double layout half out. Next is the Biles II floor exercise skill which is a double backflip with three twists. Finally is the Biles II for the beam. In this skill, the gymnast dismounts by doing a double-twisting, double backflip.

What was the scoring issue with the skills named after Simone Biles?

When Simone Biles added two new unique skills named after her in 2019 there was a lot of controversy over the scoring of it. The gymnastics scoring system gives different moves points values based on the difficulty of the skills. Although the Biles II’s were both some of the most difficult skills in gymnastics, people felt the difficulty score didn’t reflect that. This skill was given a lower score to discourage athletes from trying this before they were ready and getting hurt.

Will Simone Biles retire?

Simone Biles planned to retire after the Tokyo Olympics. Gymnasts are known to have short windows to compete professionally because of how tough the sport is on a player's body. Simone Biles has had only minor injuries, but after training so strenuously, she feels like it’s time to give her body a rest. With the Olympics getting postponed to be a year later, Simone Biles hasn’t committed to competing in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

How high can Simone Biles jump?

Simone Biles is known to floor audiences during her routine while performing her signature double layout move. To complete the move, she has to get a lot of height in order to rotate twice with her whole body extended. To do this, she has to go up about double her height. This would be nine feet and four inches in the air. The floor has springs that help gymnasts, but Biles still has an incredible jump.

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