Simone Biles unsure of gymnastics legacy: “Usually… it means you’re done. So I don’t have an answer for you”
The 11-time Olympic medallist continues to leave the door open to another chapter of her gymnastics career.
Artistic Gymnastics
Seven-time Olympic gymnastics gold medallist Simone Biles isn’t sure what her legacy in the sport she’s dominated for more than a decade will be, in part, she says, because that career might not be over just yet.
“Usually if you’re using the word legacy, it means you’re done. So, I don’t have an answer for you,” said Biles Wednesday evening (23 October) during a Q&A following a screening of the final episode of her Netflix documentary Simone Biles: Rising in Hollywood.
Q&A moderator Scott Evans, host of the popular entertainment news program Access Hollywood, told the room that when he previewed the question with Biles backstage, she had balked.
“She said, ‘Why are you asking me that? It’s not the end?’” said Evans. “Noted. Noted.”
Questions about what’s next for Biles have been aplenty since her historic return to the top of the Olympic podium at this summer’s Olympic Games Paris 2024.
There, she helped Team USA to the gold medal before claiming all-around and vault individual titles and a silver medal on the floor exercise.
Biles typically deflects. The tour that she stars in, Gold Over America Tour, with her Olympic teammates is her focus now. Then, she plans to spend time with her husband, Jonathan Owens, in Chicago, where he plays for the NFL’s Bears.
Still, she has never closed the door to a fourth trip to the Olympic Games.
“The next Olympics is at home, so you just never know,” she said in Paris. "But I am getting really old.”
At 27 years old, Biles became the oldest Olympic all-around winner in 72 years, since Maria Gorokhovskaya, then 30, won the event’s inaugural staging at Helsinki 1952.
With 11 Olympic medals to her career so far, LA2028 would offer Biles a chance to pass swimming great Katie Ledecky as the most medalled U.S. female Olympian. Ledecky currently owns 14 medals.