Simone Biles boasts a career filled with remarkable triumphs, including multiple Olympic and World Championship titles. However, she has also faced her share of setbacks, including missing a spot on the national team during a junior championship.
In her autobiography, Courage to Soar (published in 2016), Biles reflected on the mixed reaction she received on her performance at the 2011 Visa National Championships. She became the first gymnast from the Bannon’s Gymnastics Center to compete at national championships.
Biles highlighted that despite the pride and support from her gym, she still received a few criticisms after opting not to execute the Amanar vault, which the famed coach Martha Karolyi had asked her to do.
“Back in Texas, my teammates at the gym crowded around me eagerly,” Biles wrote. “It turned out they were thrilled by the way I’d represented them, and since I was the first one from Bannon’s ever to compete at Nationals, they wanted to hear every detail. After a while, our head coach yelled for everyone to get back to practice, and I sat down with Aimee to review the video of my routines.”
She added: “That’s when I discovered that, as proud as my family and the girls in the gym had been of my performance, not everyone had that point of view… One of the coaches seemed disappointed that I’d chosen not to do a skill that the powerful Martha Karolyi herself had requested.”
Simone Biles began her gymnastics career training under Aimee Boorman. Having started training at the age of seven, Biles continued her journey with Bannon’s for seventeen years before she began training at World Champions Center, an elite-level facility built by her parents, Ronald and Nellie.
Simone Biles registered the record of winning National Championships title for the ninth time in 2024
Simone Biles went on to become the gymnast with the highest number of National Championships titles in the USA. The 27-year-old has secured the elite title in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2023, and 2024 editions of the championships.
Her recent individual all-around title at the national championship was during the 2024 edition held at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth, Texas, where she dominated the line-up after scoring 119.750 points, defeating Skye Blakely and Kayla DiCello, who posted 113.850 and 110.800 points, respectively.
This feat also made her the oldest gymnast to have won the title. The same year, Biles enjoyed a victorious streak at the Paris Games, becoming the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast.
