By Alexander Stone
Simone Arianne Biles Owens was born on 14 March 1997 in Columbus, Ohio – the third of four children. By the time she reached 27, she had accumulated 11 Olympic medals and 30 World Championship medals, making her the most decorated gymnast in history. No gymnast, male or female, has matched those figures. Yet the statistics alone miss what makes Biles singular: she walked away from the biggest stage in sport, came back stronger, and rewrote the conversation around mental health in athletics.
Early life and foster care
Biles’ biological mother, Shanon Biles, struggled with substance abuse and was unable to care for her children. All four Biles siblings entered the foster care system when Simone was three years old. For three years, they moved between foster homes. Simone later described the experience on Dancing with the Stars, saying she remembered feeling “hungry and afraid.”
Her grandfather Ronald and his wife Nellie visited regularly. At six, Simone and her younger sister Adria were adopted by them. “Having my parents and that support made me who I am today,” Biles told USA Today in 2021. The family relocated to Spring, Texas, where Biles began gymnastics at age six after a daycare field trip to Bannon’s Gymnastics. Coaches recognised her natural ability almost immediately. She began training seriously under Aimee Boorman, and by 2011 had transitioned to the junior elite division.
The rise through the ranks
Biles made her international debut in 2013 at the City of Jesolo Trophy and the American Cup. At the 2013 World Championships in Antwerp, aged just 16, she won two golds – the all-around and floor exercise – plus a silver on vault and bronze on beam. She introduced a new floor skill, the Biles (a double layout with half twist), which was entered into the Code of Points.
Four World golds followed in 2014 (Nanning) and another four in 2015 (Glasgow). Heading into Rio 2016, she was the overwhelming favourite. She delivered: gold in the all-around, team, vault, and floor, plus bronze on beam. She became the first woman since 1974 to win four golds at a single Olympics. At 19, she had five Olympic medals.
She continued dominating at the 2018 Worlds in Doha (four golds, one silver, one bronze) and the 2019 Worlds in Stuttgart (five golds). By then, she had invented more skills than any other gymnast – moves so difficult that no one else attempts them. These include the Biles I on floor (double layout with half twist), the Biles II on floor (triple-double), the Biles on vault (Cheng with half twist), and the Biles on beam (double-double dismount).
Tokyo 2021: the twisties and withdrawal
Biles entered the Tokyo Olympics – held in 2021 due to the pandemic – favoured to win up to six gold medals. During the team final on 27 July, she competed her first vault but bailed mid-flight, completing only one-and-a-half twists instead of the planned two-and-a-half. She scored 13.766, uncharacteristically low, and exited the floor.
The issue was the “twisties” – a dangerous mental block in which a gymnast loses proprioception while airborne. For an athlete performing skills with multiple rotations at extreme height, the condition is terrifying and potentially catastrophic. “My mind and body are simply not in sync,” Biles explained on Instagram.
She withdrew from the team final, the individual all-around, vault, floor, and uneven bars. Team USA won silver without her – the “Fighting Four” of Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, and Grace McCallum. Biles returned for balance beam only, winning bronze. “My mental and physical health is above all medals that I could ever win,” she said.
The decision ignited a global conversation about mental health in elite sport. Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian in history, publicly supported her. Biles became an accidental advocate – a role she admitted she had not sought. “I knew that I could have the possibility of becoming an advocate for that. But it wasn’t my goal,” she told Olympics.com.
The comeback
Biles married NFL safety Jonathan Owens on 22 April 2023 in a courthouse ceremony in Houston, Texas. A larger celebration followed on 6 May 2023 in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The couple had met on a dating app in 2020, before the pandemic.
During the hiatus, Biles received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Biden in July 2022. She also began therapy and worked with coaches Cecile and Laurent Landi to rebuild her confidence.
Her competitive return came at the 2023 World Championships in Antwerp – the same city where she had debuted a decade earlier. She won five medals: four golds (team, all-around, beam, floor) and one silver (vault). That haul brought her World Championship total to 30 medals (23 gold), extending her own record. She also won her eighth US national title, breaking Alfred Jochim’s 90-year-old record.
Paris 2024: redemption
At the 2024 Paris Olympics, Biles competed at 27 – an age at which most elite gymnasts have long retired. She helped Team USA reclaim the gold in the team final, dubbed the “Golden Girls.” In the individual all-around, she held off Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade to win gold, becoming the first woman to win two Olympic all-around titles non-consecutively. She won vault gold (executing the Biles II – the Yurchenko double pike, the most difficult vault in women’s gymnastics) and floor exercise silver.
Her total medal count reached 11 Olympic medals: seven gold, two silver, two bronze. She broke 13 records during the Paris Games alone, including the longest gap between individual all-around golds (eight years, surpassing Larisa Latynina and Vera Caslavska), and became one of only 29 athletes in history to win more than 10 Olympic medals.
Biles was named Best Female Athlete and Best Championship Performance at the 2025 ESPYs. She also won the Laureus World Sportswoman of the Year for the fourth time (2017, 2019, 2020, 2025) and Comeback of the Year in 2024.
Beyond the medals
Biles has never forgotten her roots in foster care. She works with the Friends with Children nonprofit and advocates for children in the system. Her autobiography, Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance, was published in 2017.
Her personal life reflects the balance she has learned to strike. Thursday, she has said, is her therapeutic day – a time for herself. She has not ruled out competing at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where she would be 31. “Success, to me, means something a little bit different now,” she told Olympics.com. “Before, everybody defined success for me. Now, it’s about showing up, being in a good mental space, having fun, and letting whatever happens happen.”
Simone Biles does not merely balance work and play. She has demonstrated that an athlete can prioritise their mind as fiercely as their body – and still win more medals than anyone who has ever lived.
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