Simone Biles

Simone Biles is the supertalent of gymnastics. Despite her young age, she has achieved everything in her career - multiple world champion and Olympic champion, bestselling author and the most successful gymnast in the USA, not least as a record holder in the all-around. With nine US championships, she holds the national record as the greatest gymnast of all time.

She performs elements that no one can imitate - not even her male colleagues. Simone Biles may only be 142 cm tall, but she packs a lot of muscular strength into those scant 1.50 meters. She has been a top international gymnast in all disciplines of her sport for years and is constantly driving her development forward. At the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart, for example, she performed two new elements that no woman had ever performed at international level before. In gymnastics, these elements are also named after their inventor, meaning that Biles has already made herself immortal - at least in name. She was the first woman to perform a Yurchenko with a double somersault backwards on vault at US Classics 2021, and later she also performed this vault on the international stage.

Her "triple double" on the floor, a squatted double somersault with an integrated triple twist, is so difficult that the letter "J" was introduced for it and the difficulty scale of the International Gymnastics Federation FIG was extended upwards. Officially, this trick is now called "Biles II", as she has already created the "Biles" on the floor, a double somersault stretched backwards with a half twist and blind landing.

Two elements on the vault and a dismount from the balance beam also bear her name. And Biles is already getting ready for the next vault: she has already registered a new gymnastics element for the uneven bars. If she performs this routine at the Olympics, she would be the first active gymnast with elements named after her in all four sub-disciplines.

Double somersault squat with integrated triple twist sounds complicated? It is, even for professional gymnasts, be they female or male. And even if Biles is said to have the ideal physique for gymnastics, her secret recipe is still: "Practice, practice, practice."

It could have been the lowest point in Simone Biles' career - and yet it is perhaps the gymnast's great hero moment: at the Olympic Games in Tokyo, Simone Biles cancels the all-around competition after the first discipline. The spectators and fellow competitors in the hall fear an injury, but the exceptional athlete later admits: she had the "twisties". Every gymnast knows this condition, a sudden feeling of loss of control - the body no longer moves the way you actually want it to. Through tears, the 24-year-old says: "I had to do what was right for me and focus on my mental health and not jeopardize my well-being." For some time now, she has had less self-confidence than before, is more nervous and has less fun. The biggest battle she is currently fighting is with herself. Her team wins a silver medal after all, with Simone Biles in the background.

She then returns for the individual competition on the balance beam. Even though she skipped some difficult elements due to her condition at the time, she impressed the judges with her precise execution and won the bronze medal. A crowning finale for Biles, who had fought so hard for this Olympic participation in recent years. Competing on the balance beam was something she only did for herself, Biles emphasizes: "It meant the world to me to go out there again.

Biles received a lot of encouragement for her open approach to her mental problems during the Olympic Games in Tokyo. Her prioritization of her own health over potential success led to a debate about mental stress and expectations in competitive sport. This is one of the reasons why Biles was named Times Athlete of the Year in 2021.

After three years, Simone Biles is back on the big stage at the 2024 Olympics in Paris - and how she is back. She wins her eighth gold medal in the team all-around, making her the most decorated gymnast in history. And that's not all, because Biles also excels in the individual all-around and becomes Olympic champion. But the road to the 2024 Olympics in Paris was not an easy one, especially after her mental problems at the last Games in Tokyo. Biles fights her way back to the top and deals openly with the hurdles on the way there. Numerous documentaries such as Netflix's "Simone Biles: Rising" are dedicated to Biles' return to the Olympic Games and provide insights into the mind of an absolute gymnastics star.

Even if it seems as if Simone Biles' victories on the international stage literally come to her, she has by no means always had it easy. Born in Columbus (Ohio) in 1997, Biles grew up in difficult circumstances as the third of four children. After her biological mother was unable to care for her children due to drugs and alcohol, Simone spent her childhood in foster care. She is later raised and adopted by her grandparents. She tried gymnastics at the age of six, showed talent right from the start and soon began to train regularly. She won her first world championship title at the age of 16 in Antwerp. Today, with a total of 23 gold, 4 silver and 3 bronze medals, she is the most successful participant in gymnastics world championships of all time.

In 2018, as part of the #metoo online movement, Biles came out publicly about having been sexually abused by the former doctor of the US gymnastics team. Thanks in large part to the testimony of many prominent gymnasts like Biles, the case was investigated in detail and the doctor Larry Nassar was convicted. Particularly tragic: according to a report published in July 2021, the FBI did not follow up on initial reports of abuse as required and thus enabled Nassar to commit further acts for months. Biles also addresses the misconduct of the gymnastics association and describes her frustration with the behavior of officials, some of whom knew about the abuse and yet failed to protect her and other victims.

Since April 2023 Simone Biles has been happily married to NFL player Jonathan Owens and regularly shares her happiness on Instagram.

As part of the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Biles is causing another novelty in gymnastics: she has become the first gymnast ever to have her own emoji dedicated to her by Twitter. The hashtags #Simone and #SimoneBiles are embellished with the emoji of a goat in a leotard. Background: Biles calls himself GOAT - an acronym for Greatest of all times . The abbreviation also means "goat" in English.