Simone Biles won gold, then put on a necklace to tease her critics

And still, she rises. Simone Biles lived the words inked on her collarbone to soar above the trauma, above the criticism, above the ghosts of Tokyo, and above even the laws of endurance and gravity, to leap further into history.

After her victory on Friday morning AEST, her sixth Olympic gold, she put on a necklace. It was a diamond-encrusted goat, to please her fans and tease those critics who hate it when Biles, who is the greatest gymnast of all time, actually lays claim to that title.

It wasn’t an easy victory. Even GOATs can wobble. She followed her breathtaking first vault with a mistake in the uneven bars, leaving room for the woman she has described as her scariest rival, Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, to eclipse her.

Just a fraction of a point separated them until Biles unleashed a breathtaking floor routine that brought the crowd to its feet and cemented her sixth Olympic gold, her second in 48 hours, adding to the honours that make her the most decorated gymnast of all time.

“I’ve never had an athlete that close,” she smiled after the event, as her leotard encrusted with 10,000 crystals dazzled under the lights. “I don’t like that feeling.”

Yet Biles has survived worse, mostly off the field of play. Her resilience in competition flows from her resilience in life.

Her birth mother and father struggled with alcohol and drugs. As a kid in Texas, she was hungry for food and attention. She lived in foster care before being adopted by her grandfather and his wife, who she now calls her parents.

She was one of hundreds of women sexually assaulted by former national gymnastics team doctor Lawrence G Nassar. She has struggled under the burden of the trauma. “I held a lot of the guilt that wasn’t mine to hold,” she has said.

She has suffered physically, too, a pain that she finds easier to bear than the mental torment but never lets up. Broken ribs. Heel spurs. She won national titles with broken toes in both feet and competed in the worlds with an agonising kidney stone.

Biles owns being the GOAT, putting on a diamond-encrusted necklace immediately after winning gold.Credit: Getty Images

But it was Tokyo, the lonely Olympics, that until now has defined Biles. She abruptly withdrew from the team event, and then all subsequent events during the 2021 Games, after missing a vault attempt and landing in a deep squat.

She had the twisties, a frightening condition in which gymnasts become disoriented; Biles has described it as becoming lost in the air. Many applauded her decision to look after her mental health. Others didn’t.

British commentator Piers Morgan accused her of being a quitter. Conservative US podcaster Charlie Kirk accused her of being selfish and a shame to the country. When things get tough, he said, she fell apart.

After her victory on Friday morning, Biles told reporters in Paris that she left Tokyo thinking she would never compete again.

She credits therapy with getting her back into the air. She saw her therapist at 7am in Paris before the evening’s competition. “Leading into Tokyo, I was so nervous about getting injured physically that I kind of injured my mental health,” she said.

Simone Biles’ extraordinary floor routine cemented first place.Credit: Eddie Jim

As she prepared for Paris, and a repeat of the team vault that felled her last time drew nearer, the critics began chirping again. She was defiant. “What are you going to do about it, tweet me some more?” she said after conquering the Olympic trials.

On Tuesday, Biles breezed through the group event to claim gold with her US teammates. Once she’d catapulted herself over the vault, she relaxed. The camera even caught her yawning and then laughing.

But the all-round individual event, one of the most prestigious of the Games, was more serious.

“I just still think I’m Simone Biles from Spring, Texas, who loves to flip.”

Simone Biles

With a powerful Yurchenko double pike on the vault, Biles leapt into the lead. But she made a costly mistake on the uneven bars, her “worst event”. She’d practised hard. She was disappointed. “I can swing some bars, you know?” she told journalists.

She regained the lead after the balance beam, but only by a hair’s breadth. Still, Biles remained cool. She’s 27; in a sport historically dominated by girls, she is a woman, and that maturity was evident.

She was stressed. Her rival was dangerously close. But before the breathtaking floor routine that brought the crowd to their feet and secured gold, she looked at the camera and nodded her head.

The goat necklace sat waiting in its box. She wore it as she was presented with Olympic gold. “It’s crazy that I’m in the conversation about the greatest of all athletes because I just still think I’m Simone Biles from Spring, Texas, who loves to flip.”

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