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Simone Biles won her second gold medal of the Paris Games, her sixth Olympic title and her record-tying ninth medal overall, on Thursday night when… He won gold in the individual all-around competition to add to The team title he had won on Tuesday.reaffirming her status as one of the world’s greatest athletes of all time.
In a packed Bercy Arena, the hottest ticket in town, Biles was watched by sporting royalty Zinedine Zidane and Tony Park as she reclaimed the Olympic title she first won in Rio to join the great Nadia Comaneci on a record nine medals for the sport.
Though she had some lapses on the uneven bars, she comfortably won the other three routines, landing a Biles II on vault and a beautifully choreographed performance on floor to beat Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade by 1,199 points.
The 27-year-old is one of the few athletes who truly transcends her discipline, with her youthful dominance, longevity, honesty and glamour characterising the modern athlete model. Her longevity is unprecedented, but she arrived at the 2024 Olympics in unique circumstances, having withdrawn from all but two events at the Tokyo Games three years ago due to suffering from “the twisties”.
However, he has regained his confidence and dominated. The 2023 World Championship Arriving at the Games in great form and with the possibility of winning more medals on vault, beam and floor.
When will Simone Biles compete again?
August 3rd
Pony jumping final – 3:20 p.m.
August 4th
Uneven bars final – 2:40 p.m. (Biles is the first reserve, having qualified in ninth place for the eight-woman final)
August 5
Balance Beam Final – 11:38 am
Final floor exercise – 13.23h
Why is Simone Biles so special?
The American is the most successful gymnast of all time. Her Olympic and world pedigree is unquestionable, having won 37 Olympic and world medals. She won her first medals in 2013 at international level, taking two golds, a silver and a bronze at the World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium. Ten years later, she returned to the same city and won four golds and a silver to exemplify her unprecedented longevity in a sport where the average age of medal winners at the Tokyo Olympics was 20.6 years.
She has been a pioneer in her sport, innovating several new moves and skills, and has helped lead the conversation about sexual abuse in gymnastics and mental health.
Biles’ profile beyond the gym is also huge. She is an ambassador for major global brands such as Beats by Dre, United Airlines, Uber Eats, Athleta and Visa. She is married to American football star Jonathan Owens and has worn A jersey worth £2,333 thanks to 10,000 Swarovski crystals sewn into the material on Sunday.
What is ‘Biles’?
Such is Biles’ all-court excellence, Biles can refer to multiple skills she invented.
Biles can perform on vault, balance beam, and floor. On vault, she is a move she invented in 2018 with a difficulty rating of 6.0, with 6.4 being the most difficult rating possible (more on that below).
On the balance beam, the Biles is a move rated 8/10 in difficulty and represents one of the most difficult dismounts possible at the end of a routine.
The third and final ‘Biles’ refers to a floor exercise she first performed at just 16 in 2013, in which she does a double backflip and turns 180 degrees on the second. It has a difficulty rating of 7/10.
What is ‘Biles II’?
As a symptom of her insatiable appetite for success, two of the moves mentioned were in need of development, particularly the “Biles” vault.
The ‘Biles II’ has a maximum difficulty rating of 6.4.and has been added to her arsenal during the last Olympic cycle, meaning her execution in Paris was a world first and helped her achieve a massive score of 15.800.
“Biles II” also refers to her most difficult floor move that she debuted in 2019. Strikingly, it sees her leap into a backflip in which she spins 1,080 degrees before landing.
What happened to Simone Biles at the Tokyo Olympics?
Three years ago, Biles withdrew from five Tokyo Olympic finals, citing mental health issues that were playing out with “the twisties.”
The spins refer to a mental block. In this case, a gymnast loses her sense of space while in the air, opening up the possibility of falling and injuring herself. The incident occurred live during the team final, shortly after she admitted on social media that she was feeling “the weight of the world on (her) shoulders” after qualifying.
Despite a torrent of backlash, with critics calling her a quitter and trolls sending racist and sexist slurs her way, Biles was open about prioritizing mental health, an approach vindicated by her return to success in the years that followed.