Simone Biles began competing as a level 8 gymnast in 2007. She made her international debut in 2013. At the 2013 World Championships, she won the all-around with a score of 60.216. In 2014, she was named the Women's Sports Foundation Sportswoman of the Year. In 2015, she became the first woman to win three consecutive world all-around titles.
Gymnastics' international governing body, the FIG, was founded in 1881 and still runs international gymnastics. Scoring at that level follows its Code of Points. Under the 2006 scoring system, two panels of judges score each routine, and each panel evaluates a different aspect of the performance. The E score covers execution and artistry, and the D score covers skill requirements, difficulty value and connection value. Each routine gets two scores added together, one for difficulty and one for execution. Before 2006, the highest possible score in gymnastics was a perfect 10. The newer scoring system removed the perfect 10.
In the Code of Points, skill difficulty is ranked in letters from A, worth .10, up to J, worth 1.0. Execution errors are judged small, medium or large, and cost 0.1, 0.3 or 0.5 points. The execution score of a routine starts at 10.0 points, and judges take points off for each visible error. The difficulty score starts at zero and goes up as harder skills are added.
Simone has competed at three Olympic Games: 2016, 2020 and 2024. At the 2016 Olympics, she won four gold medals. Her first Olympic gold came in the team event, on August 9. She set an American record for the most gold medals won in women's gymnastics at a single Games. Team USA also chose her to carry the U.S. flag at the closing ceremony.
In July 2017, Simone Biles won the ESPY Award for Best Female Athlete. She published an autobiography in 2017, called Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance. The book, which she co-wrote, reached number one on The New York Times best sellers Young Adult list. In 2022, she was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and she became the youngest person to receive it.
At the 2024 Olympics, Simone helped the U.S. team win the team gold medal. She won three gold medals and one silver medal, and lost the floor exercise gold by 0.033 points. At age 27, she became the second-oldest woman to win the Olympic all-around gold medal. She also became the third woman to win two Olympic all-around titles. As of November 2026, she has won 11 Olympic medals, and 7 of them are gold.
Words to know
- debut: first appearance
- consecutive: in a row
- artistry: skilled artistic style
- panels: groups of judges
