She sealed her legacy with four medals at the Paris Games. She created it by being herself and going at her own pace.
To end the Olympics she once thought would never happen for her, Simone Biles began her floor exercise routine and did what she was made to do: flip and twist and thrill an arena filled with people there to watch her.
Every time Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, landed one of her wildly difficult tumbling passes, the crowd seemed to shout, “Wow!” all at once. And when she was done, standing alone on the floor in her sparkly leotard, the spectators rose to honour her – perhaps as much for her entire career as for a brilliant but flawed floor routine.
Biles stepped out of bounds twice during the routine, which was by far the most difficult that any of the finalists attempted. As a result, she did not win, as expected. Instead, she received the silver medal, while Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, her rival, won the gold by just over three one-hundredths of a point. American Jordan Chiles, one of Biles’ closest friends, won the bronze.
When Chiles’ bronze medal was announced, she cried – and Biles smiled and laughed while hugging her.
Three years earlier, Biles withdrew from nearly all of her events at the Tokyo Games after becoming disoriented in the air, a moment that prompted her to consider quitting the sport. This week, she finished the Paris Games with three gold medals and one silver. (Earlier in the day, she finished fifth on the balance beam after losing points because of a fall.)
Her imperfect final performances did little to dull her lustre at these Games. On each day she competed, celebrities dotted the stands, making gymnastics – already a marquee sport of the Olympics – seem like the hippest club in Paris. There were Lady Gaga, Tom Cruise and Ariana Grande, and sports legends including Serena Williams, Michael Phelps and Stephen Curry. After a day at the water polo venue, Flavor Flav, the rapper, said how much he admired Biles and wanted “to meet her, shake her hand and give her a hug and tell her how proud I am of her”.
“Not too many Black athletes right now is doing what she’s done,” he said.
Billie Jean King, the tennis champion and longtime proponent of women’s equality in sports, said she “wouldn’t miss Biles’ performance for anything”.
Monday’s floor competition would be perhaps the final Olympic performance for Biles, who is known to her mother as Little Turtle, for reasons that take some explaining.
Growing confidence
Biles arrived at the athletes’ village at the Paris Games with her confidence growing by the day. Still, in the back of her mind was the possibility that she would have flashbacks from Tokyo and that her troubles from those Games would return. So in Paris, she placed reminders of her gymnastics genius and legacy everywhere.
On her twin bed was a brown stuffed goat to commemorate her as the greatest of all time, or GOAT, of gymnastics. On the wall above her bed was a cutout picture of a goat’s head.
And tucked away in a grey velvet box was a necklace with a goat-shaped charm encrusted in 546 diamonds. She had ordered it around the time she won the US Olympic trials and would put it around her neck at the Olympics when she thought the time was right.
Her mother, Nellie Biles, said she got a kick out of Simone’s being “the GOAT” because she has long viewed her in a more modest way: as her “little turtle”. That was the nickname she gave Simone when she was a young gymnast, a reminder that Simone should go at her own pace and be herself.
“Don’t worry that you are moving slowly,” Nellie recalled telling her. “Just be sure of what direction you are going in.”
It became a ritual for Nellie to give Simone a tiny porcelain turtle before meets. Those tiny turtles multiplied into turtles of all kinds when friends and family learned about the tradition. Simone said some of the turtles had sayings on them, like “Go at your own pace” or “One step at a time”. Now the family has jars and jars filled with the small ones, Nellie said.
The idea of being a confident “little turtle” was the foundation for Simone Biles changing the sport.
Instead of enlisting in the army of gymnasts who complied with whatever their coaches told them to do – which was the culture in the sport for generations – Biles refused to dim her personality and did whatever made her happy, at whatever pace she wanted.
Eventually, Márta Károlyi, then the national team coordinator, had to let Biles be Biles. That included breaking the long-standing rule that gymnasts had to be silent and obedient at national team camps, even though it meant that Biles’ giggle made other gymnasts giggle too.
“Simone was just so good that they had to be like, ‘OK, she can do whatever she wants because it’s working for her,’” said Aly Raisman, the three-time Olympic gold medalist who won the team gold with Biles at the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016.
‘From another world’
Biles, of course, pushed the sport forward with some of the hardest gymnastics moves in history, including five that are named for her because she was the first one to execute them in a major international competition.
Andrade, the gold medalist on the floor exercise, said that competing with Biles inspired her to develop a triple twisting vault. She didn’t try it at the Olympics because she wasn’t ready, yet she still won silver in the all-around competition. She described Biles as being so good that she “is from another world”.
Andrade said it was nice to see Biles having fun with her gymnastics again and that Biles in turn made the sport fun.
In Paris, Biles appeared to have more fun than she’s had at a gymnastics meet in a long time. She started by making new friends in the athletes’ village and thanking old ones by giving them a gold heart-shaped pin with her name on it, which quickly became something of a collector’s item.
@tyshaikenasio Olympic Pin Quest 2.0 - help me out… im new to tik tok 😂🌿🖤🇳🇿 #olympics #paris2024 #thenzteam #nzsevens #olympicpins #olympicvillage @Alena Saili @Tyla King @Risi Pouri-Lane @Theresa Fitz
♬ original sound - Tysha Ikenasio
“Okay but is a Simone Biles PERSONALIZED pin the GOAT of Olympic pins?!” New Zealand rugby player Tysha Ikenasio said on TikTok, looking elated as she showed off the prized pin.
Biles was just as lighthearted during her news conferences after winning each of her gold medals. She joked when Raisman asked her the squad name of the US team that won the gold medal in Paris, first using an acronym that included a letter that stood for a curse word. Later that day, she posted on social media that the team name was the more acceptable “Golden Girls” because four of the five members were in their 20s – historically old for gymnasts. Biles is 27.
And after she won the all-around gold medal, Biles finally took out her blinged-out goat necklace and wore it on the medal stand. She called it an “ode,” perhaps to her legacy, which is how jeweller Janet Heller, who created the necklace, described it on social media.
The haters would have hated it, Biles said, and that made her happy.
“They’re really quiet now, so that’s strange,” she said, with sarcasm, referring to the critics who called her a loser and a quitter after her mental block in Tokyo.
A simple schedule
Biles’ agent, Janey Miller, said last week that Biles had nothing on her schedule after the Paris Olympics except for a 30-city Gold Over America Tour – yes, the GOAT – and a gala for the nonprofit Friends of the Children. That organisation pays mentors to spend time with foster children or other at-risk children until they become adults.
Biles was in foster care from age 3 to 6 because her mother struggled with substance abuse. At times, she and her siblings would be jealous of the cat in their foster home because he was fed when they were hungry. She would sneak into her brother’s room at night for fear that the child welfare authorities would swoop in and separate them before the sun came up.
She and her sister, Adria, were adopted by their grandparents, Ron and Nellie Biles, whom they call Mum and Dad. They were lucky, she said, because most foster kids don’t have stable adult mentors as they did. So Simone Biles has helped Friends of the Children by including the organisation when she was featured on a Wheaties box and hosting video meetings with children across the nation who are involved in the programme.
She is laid-back and relatable in those conversations, telling them that she was once like them and leading them in stretching and basic gymnastics, said Eric Gabrielson, the chief expansion officer of the organisation.
“Not everyone who gets as famous as Simone Biles actually can understand the kids that we work with and that we get to advocate for,” said Anders Allison, a program manager and professional mentor for the organisation in Texas. “She shares her own story about struggling with foster care and her mental health issues and just makes the kids believe that they could do anything, like she has done.”
Biles said she wanted to be remembered for much more than winning medals – a record 41 in all, including from the Olympics and the world championships.
Having been abused by Larry Nassar, the former national team doctor who is now in prison, she wants to be known for speaking in support of sexual assault survivors. She wants to be recognised as a voice for foster children and for mental health awareness, spreading the word that it’s OK to seek help from a therapist, as she does every Thursday.
“I think for me it’s really important to to look back one day when I’m done with my career for people to say, ‘Wow, Simone was a great gymnast, but look at all the stances she took and look at how powerful she is, and look at what she’s doing now and helping out her community,’” Biles told The New York Times.
Every year, Biles raises money for Friends of the Children when she hosts her Simone Biles International Invitational gymnastics meet in Houston. A cut of the proceeds from the meet and all of the money from the sale of a special leotard and a stuffed toy also go to the mentor group.
That toy, the mascot of the meet, is a turtle.
The end, perhaps
When her Olympics were done, Biles said that she was content with the way they ended, even though she finished with no medal on the balance beam and a silver medal on the floor exercise.
“I’m not very upset or anything about my performance at the Olympics,” she said. “I’m actually very happy, proud — and even more excited that it’s over.”
Nellie and Adria Biles said the world should remember what they saw Simone do on Monday at the Olympic arena. Etch the images into their minds because, they said, it could very well be Simone Biles’ final Olympics.
“Oh, this is it, definitely,” Adria said, convinced that her sister wants to start a family after marrying last year.
Biles has hinted at coming back, saying the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 were alluring because she could compete in her home country. But there are signs she won’t.
One of her coaches, Cécile Canqueteau-Landi, is leaving Biles’ World Champions Centre gym in Spring, Texas, to coach at the University of Georgia. Biles herself has said she is “getting really old” and that she has a life outside gymnastics – friends to spend time with, places to travel to and a husband, Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens, to cheer on.
The night Biles won the vault final, she said that was the last time she would perform her dangerous Yurchenko double pike vault, having done it in competition since 2021. No other woman has even tried it in competition. “I mean, I kind of nailed that one,” she said.
Asked before the Paris Olympics about the possibility of retirement, she told the Times, “If all is successful, and then we’ll decide after that.”
And then, a pause. “The sacrifices are getting to be a lot now,” she said in a quieter voice.
Raisman, though, had a quick answer when asked about Biles’ future in the sport. She said she could see Biles coming back for the next Olympics, when Biles will be 31.
“I feel like Simone will be a mum and then still be competing,” Raisman said. “Nothing she does surprises me.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Juliet Macur
Photographs by: Daniel Berehulak, Chang W. Lee, Gabriela Bhaskar, Meridith Kohut and James Hill
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES