“I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps – I’m the first Simone Biles.”

She will be awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Joe Biden in 2022.

Simone Biles, born March 14, 1997, is an American gymnast who has rewritten the sport of gymnastics with her out-of-the-world performance in the 2016 Rio Olympics. She is also considered one of the sport’s greatest athletes, according to critics.

During the Rio edition, she became the first female US gymnast to take home four gold medals at a single Games. She is also the first gymnast to win three successive world all-around titles (2013–15).

She grew up in Spring, Texas and was, along with her sister Adria, adopted by their grandparents, Ronald and Nellie Biles. She was inspired to take up gymnastics at the age of six during a day-care field trip to Bannon’s Gymnastix and the rest is history.

She stayed with them for 11 years and was coached by Aimee Boorman. In 2010, she won a gold in the floor exercise and a bronze in the vault at the Women’s Junior Olympic National Championships. And after this, she broke into the elite level of competition in 2011.

During his first year as a senior competitor in 2013, Biles won the all-around title at her first world gymnastics championships. With this, she became the first African-American woman to win the title. She also won a silver medal in vault and took home the bronze medal in the balance beam.

The 2014 world championships saw her take home four gold medals – women’s team competition, individual all-round, balance beam and floor exercise.

Simone won her third successive US all-round title in 2015. By doing so, she became the first woman to achieve the feat since Kim Zmeskal in 1992. In the same year, she completed her hat trick of all-around titles at the world championships.

She also won the balance beam and floor exercise titles, a bronze medal in vault, and a share of the team title. These victories brought her career total to 14 world championship medals – this was the most ever earned by a US gymnast, irrespective of gender. Her 10 world championship gold medals were also the most won by a female gymnast in the sport’s history.

At the 2016 Summer Games, she led the United States to the gold medal in the team event and then won the individual all-around. By winning the floor and vault events, she became the 5th female gymnast to win four gold medals at a single Olympics.

After a brief period of break, in 2018 she revealed that she had been a victim of Larry Nassar, a former doctor for the US national gymnastics team. He was convicted of sexually abusing numerous athletes. During this year, Simone returned to the competition.

At the 2018 US national championships, she became the first female athlete to win all five events in nearly 25 years. In the world championships history, she became the most-decorated female gymnast as she won four golds (including another all-around title), one silver, and one bronze at the 2018 championships, taking her career total at the competition to 20 medals.

At 2019’s world championship she became the first gymnast in more than six decades to win five gold medals. She also leapfrogged Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus to become the gymnast with the most world championship medals (25).

At the 2021 US Classic, she became the first female gymnast to land the Yurchenko double pike, which is considered the sport’s most difficult vault. Later that year she competed at the US national championships, where she won her 7th all-around title.