Simone Biles Becomes World’s Most Decorated Gymnast with the most World Medals

Posted on by Natalia Barreau, DI

Simone Biles becomes the world’s most decorated gymnast with the most world medals after the 2019 World Championships.

What We Know:

  • At the World Championships in Stuttgart, Germany on October 13, Simone Biles raked in her 24th and 25th world medals both were gold. She left the competition with five of the six gold medals and broke a World Championship record. She surpassed Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo’s record of 23 world medals that he won in the 1990s.  
  • She captured the event with the high scores of 15.133 for her floor exercise and 15.066 on the beam. Biles had already become the most-decorated woman when she won her 21st medal in the team competition. She currently has two moves named after her, one in the floor exercise ‘Biles II’ and one in a vault exercise ‘Biles.’
  • Earlier this month there was controversy over the dismount from the Biles, which is a double-twisting double back. The FIG, the international governing body for gymnastics, decided to award the dismount a difficulty rating. Many were critical of the decision even though the FIG said the committee made its decision in part out of concern for gymnasts’ safety.
  • She expressed her excitement after the achievement. “I don’t know; I feel like it’s not me. Sometimes I wonder how I do it. I feel like it’s just, like, not me. I wish I could have like an out-of-body experience to witness it because sometimes I think I’m going crazy,” Biles said.

Now she will prepare and get ready to take the prize at the Olympics in Tokyo next summer.

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