Biles, the 24-year-old from Spring, Texas, was one of the biggest stars at the Rio Games, where she won four gold medals and a bronze. Now with Olympic mainstays Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt having retired, she is the singular biggest star going into this year’s Games.
History is within her reach around seemingly every corner.
Another all-around gold medal on July 29 would make her the first woman in a half century to successfully defend that title — Vera Caslavska, of Czechoslovakia, was the last, having done so in 1964 and ’68.
Three more gold medals in Tokyo would tie Biles with Caslavska for second all-time among women’s gymnasts, while five golds would put the Texan even with Larisa Latynina for the most of all time — and in one fewer Olympics than the former Soviet star.
And four more medals of any color would make Biles the most decorated gymnast, male or female, at global championship events, which include the Olympics and the world championships that take place each year in between.
She already became the first woman to win three world all-around titles — and then added two more.
Her world championships medal count is now up to 19 gold and 25 total — eclipsing the records of 23 and 12 held by Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo, despite women having two fewer medal events each year.
And Biles has done it all with remarkable consistency. In six global championships since 2013, she’s won all six times in the all-around and floor exercise, and three times each on balance beam and vault. Every time there’s been a team competition, she’s won that too.
Remarkably, at the 2018 world championships Biles not only made the finals across every event, but she won a medal in all six finals too.
Biles goes into Tokyo as the overwhelming favorite to win gold medals in the team, all-around, floor and vault competitions. She’ll be favored to at least medal on beam, and even a bars medal is a possibility on the right day.
To simply count Biles’ medals is to not fully appreciate her greatness, though.
Biles is not just supremely gifted athletically, she’s also as technically proficient as perhaps anyone in the sport’s history. Put those two qualities together and she’s rewriting what’s possible.
When performing, Biles is one of those athletes who is noticeably different from the rest. Her sharpness, her vigor, her body control, her confidence — the gymnast simply has a presence that makes her stand out, even against elite competition.
Perhaps her most famous skill is the triple twisting, double backflip she performs on floor — known as the triple-double. No woman had performed it before Biles did in 2019, and two years later still no other woman has done it in competition, while Biles makes the impossibly high-flying, dizzying skill look almost routine.
In the gymnastics code of points, a skill is named after the person who first performs it at a major competition.
That triple-double took Biles’ name after she performed it at the 2019 world championships.
If all goes as planned, she’ll leave Tokyo with a fifth eponymous skill.
