How three-time Olympic champion Simone Biles is changing gymnastics

THere are two main characteristics of any athlete who earns the title of Greatest of All Time: longevity and skill. Think of Michael Jordan’s six NBA championships in 15 seasons, Tom Brady’s seven Super Bowl rings over 23 seasons and Michael Phelps’ 23 gold medals in five Olympics. Then there’s Simone Biles, who not only easily earned a spot on her third Olympic team as the most decorated gymnast in history – with 30 world championship medals, nine national all-around champion titles and seven Olympic medals – but is also changing the sport in itself.

While Biles could, at this point, continue competing with the skills she’s honed throughout her career, she continues to raise the stakes. She had five gymnastics moves named after her because she was the first to perform them in international competitions. Her last, also known as the Yurchenko double pike jump, had never been attempted in competition before by any gymnast, and only a few male gymnasts, when she performed it for the first time in 2021. U.S. team member Paul Juda, a Of the handful who compete with this skill say “her ability to jump off the table – which is 5 to 10 cm lower than what men use – and the fact that she is a few centimeters shorter than me, and is still being able to go higher than me requires an immense, almost ungodly, amount of power. Although she technically didn’t need to, Biles performed the challenging jump on both days of competition at the recent Olympic Trials in order to gain more experience with the skill under competition conditions, her coach, Laurent Landi, tells TIME. “It can only get better in competitions,” he said.

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Biles’ influence on the sport goes far beyond the technical evolution she leads. From his early days competing at the national and international level, his gregarious personality and nurturing instincts helped catalyze a much-needed cultural shift in the elite U.S. program. When Biles entered those ranks, Martha Karolyi, then the national team coordinator, discouraged light-hearted interactions, let alone smiles, at competitions and instead encouraged athletes to remain focused and serious. Biles was different, though, and couldn’t help but laugh and joke between events — it was who she was, and she and her personal trainer at the time didn’t think she needed to change. “I think she allowed everyone around her to have a little more fun, smile more and enjoy gymnastics,” says Jordyn Wieber, 2012 Olympic gold medalist and now women’s gymnastics coach at the University of Arkansas.

Biles’ achievements are all the more impressive because they came under the cover of one of the biggest sexual abuse scandals in sports. The Paris Olympics will be the first after USA Gymnastics resisted lawsuits and an effort to decertify the organization as the sport’s national governing body following the conviction of national team doctor Larry Nassar on child pornography and felony charges. of sexual abuse. Biles was among hundreds of gymnasts abused by Nassar, and her testimony and comments about the culture that discouraged gymnasts from speaking out in part sparked a shift to a more democratized system of team selection, less dependent on the subjective opinions of a few . She also became a model for mental health awareness after suddenly developing the “kinks,” in which she lost her sense of direction in the air and withdrew from most of her events at the Tokyo Olympics. “I felt like no, the mental is not there,” she said at the time. “I need to let the girls do it and focus on myself.”

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It’s this ability to see the bigger picture that will also be Biles’ legacy. “She was open and vulnerable when talking about putting her health and mental safety first,” says Nastia Liukin, 2008 Olympic all-around gold medalist. “I am inspired by the strength and humility she was able to demonstrate in facing the immense pressure he felt that I don’t think anyone fully understood.”

Biles said she instantly fell in love with gymnastics and continues to compete because it is still fun and because of everything the sport has given her. But it’s clear that this GOAT is already gifting the sport with so much more, and she’s not done yet.