It's been eight years since Simone Biles won her first Gold Medal in the Individual All-Around competition at the Summer Olympics, and now only hours since she's captured her second. Biles, now unequivocally the greatest gymnastics performer of all-time if she wasn't already, became the first woman to win two Olympic All-Around Titles since Czech gymnast Věra Čáslavská did so in 1964 and 1968.
Biles' Gold Medal performance on Thursday afternoon had another all-time great Olympian, basketball star Kevin Durant, not only praising Biles for her excellence, but also wondering aloud whether or not she could throw down a dunk like a mini LeBron James if she stepped on the hardwood.
“I really believe Goat Biles can catch a lob and finish. #bounce,” Durant said on Twitter on Thursday afternoon.
The 4'8″ Simone Biles may not have the size of your traditional rim-running big, but my God can she fly. Her performance on the uneven bars may have left something to be desired, but she more than made up for it on the vault and during her floor exercise.
“It is crazy I am in the conversation of the greatest of all time,” Biles said, per USA Today (h/t Zach Braziller of the NY Post). “I just think I’m still Simone Biles from Spring, Texas, who loves to flip.”
What makes Simone Biles' performance all the more impressive is that it comes just three years removed from the Tokyo Summer Olympics, where Biles dropped out of numerous competitions due to mental health concerns. There was worry that Biles would never return to the sport she had been mastering since the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro, but she has, winning the World Championships in 2023, and now another Gold Medal in Paris.
Now that Biles has captured the biggest prize in gymnastics, look for her to join Kevin Durant and the USA men's basketball team to see if she can prove KD right.
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