E:60 Simone Biles - E60 Michael Jordan Of Gymnastics
First-time Olympian is the favorite to take home gold medal in all-around gymnastics event. USA TODAY Sports
Simone Biles during the floor exercise in the women"s gymnastics U.S. Olympic team trials.(Photo: Kyle Terada, USA TODAY Sports)
SPRING, TexasBetween comforting a young gymnast who is crying and laughing midair on a vault where she proclaims she almost died, Simone Biles is perfecting the upgrades that will keep her ahead of the rest of the world.
Never mind that shes already miles ahead or that no one has come close to dethroning her for the better part of three years. Biles only measuring stick is herself. As she prepares for the Olympics, that high standard and unassuming personality leave admirers in her wake.
Another gymnast watching her on beam just shakes his head, saying, I feel like that shouldnt be possible.
The gyms name World Champions Centre gives the only indication of the gymnast who trains here.
Over her meteoric rise and continued dominance in the last three years, Biles, 19, has redefined what is possible in gymnastics. She has built a following in the sport that sees her mobbed by little girls at every meet.
Despite the expectations that have grown around her, Biles family and longtime coach repeat a popular refrain as a means to convey the humility and bubbliness that she has maintained.
She is just Simone, says Aimee Boorman, her coach. For me, sometimes I forget how incredible she is, because Ive known her the majority of her life and I work with her every day. So its just what she does and its who she is, and that hasnt changed through all the years. She just has a lot more medals.
That she does.
As Biles heads into Rio, shes a heavy favorite to win all-around gold and a strong contender, if not the favorite, for three event titles. She has a chance at five golds with a U.S. team title. But it seems unlikely to change the teen, who, despite winning everything the last three years, uses laughter as punctuation and remains as fearless as she was learning the sport as a child.
A natural talentGymnastics happened by chance for Biles after on a field trip when she was 6, and she hasnt tried anything else.
For her parents, it was a good way to direct her energy after they struggled to keep her from bouncing off the furniture. It was also a welcome outlet after the familys transition.
Ron and Nellie Biles adopted Simone and her sister, Adria, in 2001 after Rons daughter, Shanon, the girls birth mother, struggled with drug and alcohol issues.
The couple met in San Antonio in 1976 when Ron was in the Air Force. Nellie, who is from Belize, had come to the USA to go to nursing school. They married a year later and had two sons.
By the time Biles, Adria and their two older siblings were put into foster care, Ron and Nellie were on their way to becoming empty nesters with their sons about to graduate high school. Plans quickly changed.
We really were not a part of that family, Nellie says. So it was bringing four strangers into your house, and you need to make a family of that. Thats where it was very difficult.
Rons sister adopted the two oldest siblings, while he and Nellie suddenly had two toddlers in the house. For Simone, the transition was easy. For pretty much as long as she can remember, Ron and Nellie have been her parents and her adoption wasnt worth mentioning.
At the gym one day when she was about 10, she was playing Two Truths and a Lie with other gymnasts. Thats how they found out she was adopted.
It was never a big deal for me, so some people still dont even know, she says.
That has changed with the attention focused on her over the last year, but its part of her story rather than the whole thing.
Biles always had that bubbly personality, even at that age, and it was Ron and Nellie who instilled a sense of humility and work ethic in her.
Gymnastics was the best avenue for it. Biles was naturally athletic, even at 6, and quite daring.
Everybody would stand in line, be still. Not Simone, Nellie Biles says. Simones jumping.
Boorman recalled seeing Biles sitting on the floor and impatiently waiting her turn. Biles put her hands on the floor beside her and pulled her legs through to a plank. Hardly natural for a 6- or 7-year-old.
The coach learned quickly that she had to keep it fun for Biles or shed pick another sport. She was a smaller version of what she is right now, Boorman says.
An unprecedented streakThough Biles progressed quickly in the sport, it has been in the last three years that she has made a meteoric rise.
While she was too young to compete for a spot on the 2012 Olympic team, it doesnt bother her because she had no chance of making it.
Yet a year later she won the U.S. and world championships and started a winning streak thats still going.
Ask her how she did it, though, and she says, I dont know. I have no idea. I was dropped by some magical dragon or something. I have no idea. I just woke up and something hit me, man.
More like she hit the sport.
She realized she was good before the 2013 nationals, but she was still star-struck by gymnasts she felt she wasnt on par with. She won that meet and then hoped to make the worlds team.
We were starting to realize that Simone was really good, Ron says. You go in there wanting and wishing for the best and praying for the best, but anything can happen.
What has followed has been largely unprecedented. Biles has won the last four U.S. titles and last three world all-around titles. In those three years, she has won 14 worlds medals 10 gold. Both are records. She also has won every all-around competition she has entered since August 2013.
Shes doing harder skills than everyone else, and shes doing them with better execution. Her tumbling is arguably the best.
Its always just come easy for me, Biles says. (Some) days, Im like, Lets do this. And theyre like, Really, Simone? Nobody should be able to do that. And Im like, Well, Im going to try.
Over her run of success, and especially since winning her third world title, managing expectations has been key. She sees a sports psychologist. And Biles knows what others say about her, even if she doesnt buy into it.
For her, the key is focusing on having fun in the moment.
Over the years, the expectations have built up, but then I have to sit back and realize that people built those expectations, and I didnt, Biles says. So I have to focus on what I expect out of myself.
Part of having fun is for Boorman to let her try new skills, even difficult ones that have no chance of making it into a routine. Its not because Biles cant do them. Shes awe-inspiring. But its because the risk isnt worth the reward when shes clearly on her own level already.
While training at the World Champions Centre a gym her parents built recently after retiring and selling a chain of nursing homes they owned Biles easily does a double-twisting, double-tuck off beam.
Its a dismount so difficult that no one does it in competition. Months later, Boorman ignited a frenzy on the Internet by posting video of Biles doing the skill.
On this December day, Boorman just watches and says, You dont even look like youre trying.
Thats the magic of Biles making the most impossible skills look easy.
But its fun for her, and it often comes with a dash of teenage drama. The first time she tried it, she told Boorman to grab a camera because, Im only doing it once, and I want to see the video if I die.
Its vintage Biles doing something because it matters to her and not because it will help her to beat others.
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