Dominance does not come easily and Simone Biles is the greatest testament to this. The undisputed greatest women’s artistic gymnast of all time has gone through a lot during her run to multiple Olympic medals and shattered records. The University of the People alum has a lot of interesting reasons for success and great wins over career roadblocks. How did she rise above all of these challenges? We’ll dive deep into her career to find out.

Foster care to Wunderkind

Simone Biles was born in Columbus, Ohio on March 14, 1997. She did not enjoy a stable childhood unlike other kids of her age growing up. Along with her other siblings, she put into foster care by her biological mom, Shannon Biles. 

Simone attended Benfer Elementary School in Harris County, Texas. Her stint in the public school system did not last long as she eventually had to focus full-time on gymnastics and transitioned to homeschooling. If one thought that training for 20 hours was absurd during a week, the young gymnast started taking things up a notch and trained for more than 32 hours each week.

All of this hard work paid off as UCLA recruited her to join their team. She was set on joining the Bruins after the 2016 Rio Olympics but her legend started to outgrow the collegiate scene. From barely ranking in the 2011 American Classic, she ended up winning gold at the World Championships from 2013 to 2015. Simone was not just good at one apparatus too, she dominated the all-around, balance beam, vault, and floor exercise throughout that time.

Rise to GOAT status

The first big test of her career took place in the 2016 Rio Olympics. Simone started off well in the qualification stages as she qualified as the top gymnast in the vault, all-around, floor exercise, and balance beam. This helped propel Team USA over their Chinese rivals with a total score of 185.238. She won three of the four of the events by the end of the run and got four gold medals. It was only the balance beam that gave her a hard time and forced her to settle for bronze.

Nonetheless, this Team USA squad is probably the most formidable in all of gymnastics history. Simone, Aly Raisman, Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez, and Madison Kocian got medals in all of the events which happened for the first time since 1984.

There was only one problem amid all of this success. She was accused of doping during the events of the 2016 Olympics by her rivals. Eventually, Simone had to disclose that she had a therapeutic use exemption because of her ADHD. This had adverse effects on her mental health which caused a hiatus in 2017. She did have appearances on Dancing with the Stars. Other than that, Simone was not seen as much.

Back in World Championship form

No one was beating Simone in the apparatuses that she was good at. The lead-up to the 2018 and 2019 championships saw her enhance moves like the Yurchenko half on-straight with a front salto double twist off, the Yurchenko double pike, the double layout salto, and the double-twisting salto dismount.

This got her an easy path to win the four gold medals and a bronze in Doha. Simone’s dominance only became more apparent in Stuttgart as she won five gold medals without dropping a single event.

It was once again the Olympics but this time around the events in Tokyo were a year delayed because of the pandemic. Simone notched her seventh national championship in the all-around and punched an easy ticket for a second run with the national team. It was evident that she was struggling mightily in Japan. Notably, this is the only event where Biles could not win a single gold medal in her career. She finished with a silver medal due to the team's totals and was bronze in the balance beam.

Simone withdrew for mental health reasons and later revealed that her aunt died before the balance beam final. Up to this point, she rightfully points out that there were no regrets in putting her stability first as the weight of the world felt like it was on her shoulders.

Preparations cut short and adversity avoided

The Olympics set in Paris would only be less than three years from the one in Tokyo. This meant that Simone had to be in prime condition to reclaim her lost glory. Once she got back in the lab and started to feel better about her mental health, it was evident that another surge of dominance was coming. She won four gold medals in Antwerp and settled for silver on the vault.

She then entered 2024 and won her seventh US Classic all-around national championship. Simone then proceeded to win all the events in the US Gymnastics Championships which snowballed into her joining Suni Lee, Hezly Rivera, Jade Carey, and Jordan Chiles for the Team USA squad in Paris.

Simone debuted her Weiler kip with a 1.5 pirouette on the bars in Paris. It made her the sole women’s gymnast to have a move on every apparatus. She notched three gold medals and earned a silver on the floor exercise.

There is no certainty about her career. As of the moment, she is enjoying her life with Jonathan Owens while also doing endorsements for Nike, Beats by Dre, Gap, Procter & Gamble, United Airlines, Kellogg’s, and Mattress Firm among others. Her net worth is valued at around $16 million.