PARIS (Gray News) – The greatest gymnast of all time now has even more hardware to prove it.
Simone Biles is leaving the Paris Olympics with four new medals, three of them gold.
Biles, 27, called the Paris Olympics her “redemption tour,” hoping to prove her title as the GOAT after she struggled with mental health in Tokyo 2020 and pulled out of multiple event finals.
But she didn’t let what happened in Tokyo stop her.
Biles is now the most decorated American Olympic gymnast of all time with a whopping 11 medals – seven of them gold – across the last three Olympic Games.
“I accomplished way more than my wildest dreams, not just at this Olympics, but in the sport,” Biles said in a press conference. “So I can’t be mad at the performances … Competing then walking away with four medals. I’m not mad about it.”
Coupled with 30 World Championship medals, she is the most decorated gymnast of all time, according to NPR.
Biles won gold medals in Paris for the individual all-around, vault, and team final. She won a silver medal in floor exercise, narrowly missing another gold by just .033 points after deductions for stepping out of bounds twice.
Biles also competed in the balance beam final but did not make the podium. The beam proved to be a tough apparatus for competitors Monday as nearly all the finalists made major mistakes.
The only final Biles did not qualify for was the uneven bars, which she admits is not her best event.
Biles’ signature events are vault and floor exercise, which her performances in both during the individual all-around final helped secure the gold medal.
Women’s gymnastics wrapped up on Monday in Paris.
Team USA gave an amazing performance at the Olympics this year, with multiple gymnasts taking home multiple medals.
The “Golden Girls,” as the five team members dubbed themselves, finished with the following medals in Paris:
Simone Biles
- Gold – Team
- Gold – Individual All-Around
- Gold – Vault
- Silver – Floor Exercise
Suni Lee
- Gold – Team
- Bronze – Individual All-Around
- Bronze – Uneven Bars
Jordan Chiles
- Gold – Team
- Bronze – Floor Exercise
Jade Carey
- Gold – Team
- Bronze – Vault
Hezly Rivera
- Gold – Team
Biles hasn’t said whether or not this will be her last Olympics, though her fans know it won’t be a surprise if she retires soon.
Biles said “never say never” when asked about the Los Angeles Games in 2028, but she’ll be 31 then – an age when most gymnasts have long since retired.
Even this year, at age 27, Biles is the second oldest all-around Olympic gold medalist in history, only behind the Soviet Union’s Maria Gorokhovskaya, who won the gold medal in 1952 at age 30.
No matter what happens next, Biles’ title as the greatest gymnast of all time will go down in history and perhaps hold up forever.
“I couldn’t have asked for a better Olympic Games, a better support system,” Biles said. “Thank you, Paris.”