Simone Biles is the most successful female gymnast of all time, having won thirty World and Olympic medals. Biles, 24 years old, has won more than 25 World medals, including 19 golds, the most in gymnastics history. In Rio in the Olympic Games in Rio 2016, Biles was one of the very first women U.S. gymnasts to win four gold medals in one Game.
She’s also a 7-time U.S. all-around champion and the first woman to have won five World all-around titles and three World balance beam titles, as well as five World floor exercise titles. Biles hopes to add to her collection during the Olympic Games in Tokyo this summer. Here are some more details about Biles’s interesting life thus far.
Facts about Simone Biles
Simone Biles started gymnastics following an excursion in the daycare.
The 4’8-inch Biles is a native of Columbus, Ohio, and currently lives in Houston, Texas. When Biles was just 6, she went on a daycare field excursion in Bannon’s Gymnastix in the suburbs of Houston and was able to imitate the older gymnasts.
The coaches noticed her talent and wrote a note to her parents recommending Biles begin to train for the sport. Biles was a student of coach Aimee Boorman throughout the Rio Olympics before taking an off-year; after that, she began to train together with Cecile and Laurent Landi in October 2017.
The sister of Simone Biles also competed in gymnastics.
Simone, along with her older sister Adria who were both raised by parents Nellie and Ron, their grandparents, who adopted them from a very young age. Adria also participated in gymnastics and was trained with Simone until she reached the age of sixteen. Adria describes her sister as “fearless” and has told ESPN that Simone would jump off a second-floor balcony onto the couch below when they were children.
They look alike, to the point that, even though Adria is 6 inches taller than Simone, people mistakenly believed she was as Simone during the Rio Olympics in such a way that Adria eventually gave up trying to make people believe she was Simone and let them take her picture.
As a young person, Simone Biles was diagnosed with A.D.H.D.
In 2016, Russian hackers broke into the World Anti-Doping Agency’s website and released a variety of athletes’ medical information, including Biles’s. Biles has been identified with A.D.H.D. as a young person and is currently taking Ritalin, a stimulant listed on the banned list.
But, Biles receives approval from U.S.A. gymnastics to use the medication under a therapeutic-use exemption. Biles used Twitter to convey that taking medications for A.D.H.D. is not something to be embarrassed by.
Simone Biles has four gymnastics moves that she named after her.
To get an action named in their honor, the gymnast has to submit it to an authority for review and then succeed in landing it in a major event. Biles has four different moves named after Biles, which are two-floor moves and beam and one vault.
In May, Biles was the first gymnast to perform a vault move dubbed the Yurchenko double pike during competition. The move is an arc back handspring rounded off onto the springboard and then climbing high enough to do two flips while in a pike.
There was a debate after the judges gave the move a score of 6.6, which was similar to other less risky movements. Biles and others have criticized the International Gymnastics Federation for artificially inflating the points worth this Yurchenko double pike to discourage athletes with less experience from trying it to protect themselves and keep people like Biles from taking advantage of the chance to win a contest.
Simone Biles’s leotard.
Biles wears a rhinestone-studded goat on her leotard. She does this partially to take a shot at the haters and motivate youngsters to feel proud of their accomplishments.
The goat is a symbol of G.O.A.T., or “Greatest Of All Time.” Biles said she would like kids to know that they are good at something instead of downplaying it. Her followers on social media have helped her name it Goldie.
Simone Biles has her own Emoji.
“Simoji,” an app that costs 99 cents, features a selection of cartoon gymnasts with Biles’s similarity. Biles spoke in a brief video interview on YouTube in an interview with the U.S.A. Gymnastics that her favorite Emoji is the smiling face with the mouth sticking out.
Simone Biles crushed her competition in the handstand competition.
In April, the actor Tom Holland created a social media contest that required you to wear the t-shirt while performing a handstand against the wall. He then suggested another person perform the similar. Biles stopped everyone from participating by increasing the difficulty by removing sweatpants and doing the handstand. In less than an hour. There is no wall to support.
A bee once was chased by Simone Biles around the medal podium.
In the 2014 World Championships in Nanning, China, the 16-year-old Biles held the bouquet of blooms on the podium after securing silver in an individual competition when Romanian silver medalist Lorisa Iordache commented an insect.
Biles attempted to get the insect from the flower arrangement and naturally led to it buzzing around furiously. Biles fell the flowers in a rage, shouted, danced, and ducked off from the bug with a smile, all the while laughing.
Simone Biles competed at the 2018 World Championships despite a painful kidney stone.
Despite going to the E.R. the night before the competition, Biles helped her team win silver in her gold medal at the World Gymnastics Championship in Doha, Qatar. Biles admitted that she had been feeling stomach pains in her left side for a few days and was taken to the hospital for a medical check-up and feared that she might have appendicitis.
The tests revealed kidney stones that Biles did not clear before competing. Instead, she took to the stage and scored the most impressive personal scores for vault, beam, and floor events, as well as a second-place finish for uneven bars. The vault she also competed in was named in her honor.
Simone Biles’ boyfriend didn’t even know who she was until they began dating.
Biles is currently dating N.F.L. player Jonathan Owens, whom she was introduced to before the outbreak. It’s difficult to comprehend it, but Owens, the player for the Houston Texans, says he did not know about Biles. He did see the fact that Biles has 4 million fans on Instagram and concluded that she was probably good at what she does. He was shocked to discover what an understatement it was.
Simone Biles loves dogs.
Biles has two French bulldogs, named Lilo as well as Rambo. They are frequently seen through the Instagram accounts @thebilesfrenchies, with over 47,000 fans. Lilo Rambo and Rambo spend much time with Owens’s bulldog, Zeus, who’s also active on the social networks. At one time, Biles and her family had four German Shepherds.
After a meeting, Simone Biles treats herself to pizza.
Biles is well-known for breaking stereotypes about how female gymnasts should dress and act, and she does her work beyond the gym. Her Instagram feed is filled with photos of her enjoying time with her friends and family (and dogs) and often consuming drinks and food that a lot of athletes who aren’t elite enjoy.
She loves margaritas and tequila. She tweeted about Fried pickles and has frequently expressed her love for pizza and pizza, even going so that she indulges in the pepperoni pie at the end of every competition. When she was in St. Louis for the Olympic trials in June, she indulged in the famous square-shaped pizza slices of pizza at Imo’s and, upon returning to Texas, she tweeted that she had missed it.