Simone Biles May Be the GOAT, but One Event Stands Out Above the Rest
Published July 26 2021, 7:57 p.m. ET
Inhuman, dominant, GOAT — those are just some of the words people use to describe Simone Biles. She’s the number one gymnast all-around when combining all four events, but even the best have their best events… and their worst.
In the recent qualifying events for the Olympics, only the top two gymnasts from each country make it to the finals.
In 2016, Simone not only competed in all four events, but she also won medals in five out of six events. Although Simone truly is the greatest gymnast of all time according to many critics, she has some routines that stand out above the rest.
So what is Simone’s best event?
Simone Biles’ best event is definitely the floor.
Excluding the 2021 Olympics, Simone is still the most decorated American gymnast of all time when including her World Championship and 2016 Olympic wins for a total of 30 medals.
She’s also the gymnast with the most World medals at 25 and the most World gold medals at 19 — so she is actually a record-breaker. With her upcoming Olympic events, Simone is sure to break even more records.
While Simone took the gold in all-around in the 2016 Olympics and the 2019 World Championship, she has one event that stands out above the rest. Simone’s viral floor exercises are viral for a reason — she creates her own moves that no other gymnast can even attempt, and executes them flawlessly.
Despite this higher level of difficulty, she’s consistently taken the gold in floor, until one major error put her in second place in the 2021 Olympics qualifying rounds.
After floor, Simone dominates the vault.
Thanks to her immense strength and jump height, which allows her to add some flair to her vault jumps, Simone is pretty unstoppable on the vault, too. She won the gold medal for the vault in 2016 and has two World Championship gold medals in the event.
Although she has three gold medals for the balance beam at the World Championship, she took home the bronze for the tricky event in 2016.
Altogether, Simone truly excels in vault, beam, and the floor, which makes her number one all-around. She also has led her team to several wins, and hopes to bring home the USA’s third consecutive gold medal for the gymnastics team routine this year. However, you can’t win ‘em all, and although she qualifies for the top in the uneven bars, she’s never won the gold for that event.
In the qualifying rounds for the 2021 Olympics, Simone underperformed on the floor.
Maybe she was just having an off day, but fans and critics alike were disappointed to see some rare errors from the typically flawless Simone on the floor.
During her routine, she stepped fully off the mat and out of bounds, which led to a .3 point deduction and placed her behind Italy’s Vanessa Ferrari.
Although these types of errors are rare for Simone, she had similar problems on the vault, in which she almost stumbled off the mat after her complicated jump.
Luckily, these events aren’t the be-all and end-all for Simone — she’ll have a chance to redeem her performances in all four events finals. And even with her uncharacteristic errors, she still placed first all-around, so we have faith in Simone.