A couple of weeks ago, ESPN put together a list of the top 100 athletes of the 21st century. It’s the sort of clickbait designed to get talking heads arguing during a long summer. And there’s plenty to debate — I’d say Kobe Bryant and Floyd Mayweather are too high and Diana Taurasi and Barry Bonds are too low — but what I found most fascinating about the list was its top 10. With a quarter of the century gone, only three are still active: Lionel Messi (No. 3), LeBron James (No. 4) and Simone Biles (No. 7). Everybody else designated the top of the top is retired. And with all due respect to Messi and LeBron, both are in the valedictory periods of their careers: Neither is the best player in his sport anymore, and their grandest accomplishments are behind them.
But Biles? Well, Biles has a way of making you still feel like she’s just getting started.
The numbers get so high, in fact, that they almost become difficult to comprehend.
On Tuesday, in a return to the Olympic women’s team final — the event she famously withdrew from four years ago after suffering from what she called “the twisties” — Biles helped lead Team USA to its fourth women’s team gold medal ever and its third in the last four Olympics. It was a joyous moment for Biles and her teammates and a very strong start to Biles’ so-called redemption tour after she took two years off in the wake of her Tokyo Games collapse. Team USA is back on the top of the world again. Which means, of course, Biles is, as well.
It’s Biles’ fifth Olympic gold and the eighth Olympic medal of her career, which makes her the most decorated gymnast in U.S. history. (She already has more golds than any other U.S. gymnast in history.) She’s now only three medals behind track star Allyson Felix for the most non-swimming Olympic medals in U.S. history. She also has three more chances this Olympics, in the vault, the balance beam and the floor exercise, to add to her total. Indeed, her floor routine is perhaps the most anticipated event of these whole Olympics.
And that’s just her Olympic titles. When you add in world championships, she has a total of 38 medals, making her the most decorated gymnast in the history of the sport. The numbers keep going up.
The numbers get so high, in fact, that they almost become difficult to comprehend. Biles’ withdrawal in Tokyo and subsequent mental health break was rightly praised as an unusually brave and honest response from a star athlete. But they shouldn’t overshadow just how truly incredible, and wholly dominant, an athlete she really is. Biles has ruled her sport in a way that no one in any sport has for more than a decade now.
And here she is, still doing it.
Biles is the oldest gymnast, at 27, to win a gold medal since 1964. (That’s another record she’s likely to break later this week.)
The closest parallel you can find to Biles may be Michael Jordan, who, after winning his third NBA title, famously took a nearly two-year break from the league to play baseball in the wake of his father’s murder. But ultimately, Biles has a story like no other.
The closest parallel you can find to Biles may be Michael Jordan.
Besides talking openly and eloquently about mental health struggles, she has also shared her own heartbreaking experience as a victim of former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. This is someone who experienced the unthinkable and not only survived it, but thrived — all while speaking out and empowering others to do the same.
And she is, of course, not done. She will remain the story of these Games for the next fortnight, and, despite her advanced age (in gymnastics terms, anyway), she hasn’t yet spoken of retirement in any concrete terms. She’s the No. 9 athlete on ESPN’s top 100 — right now. But everything she does this week, and surely in the weeks and months and years to come, will keep pushing her up.
Simone Biles is like nothing we have ever seen. She is literally unprecedented.
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