This time, she also won a pile of medals.

Last week, 10 years to the day after a braces-bedecked Simone Biles claimed her first world title at Belgium’s Sportpaleis Antwerpen, the grown-up Mrs. Owens returned to that very arena. After scarcely a year back in the gym and in only her third competition since the Tokyo Olympics, Biles unequivocally dominated the 2023 World Championships. She left the arena on Sunday with her 26^th through 30^th world medals around her neck, making her the most decorated gymnast of all time, and obliterating any notion that the undisputed greatest athlete to grace the sport is anywhere near done with it.

Biles’ glut of 2023 hardware began in the team competition, as she led an all-star cast to victory over historic silver and bronze medalists Brazil and France. Biles then won her sixth individual all-around title, after a performance whose only notable flaw was an uncharacteristic stumble during a dance pass on floor exercise. (With Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade and Biles’ teammate Shilese Jones rounding out silver and bronze, we were also blessed with our first-ever all-Black worlds podium.) And the victories didn’t stop there: On the last day of the grueling, weeklong competition, Biles also won both the balance beam and floor exercise event finals.

But it is Biles’ lone glint of silver at this worlds—on the vault, the fast, dangerous event that she often dominates by nearly a point, but also the apparatus that brought on that dangerous bout of vertigo in Tokyo—that may be her most significant medal this year. Mind you, this is not because she “lost.” (As if a silver medal is for slouches! It is not!) It’s because of the statement that silver, and the score that earned it, continues to make about Biles’ priorities as an athlete and a human being.

To see what I mean, we have to rewind a week to the competition’s opening qualification round. There, Biles attempted the stratospherically difficult vault she debuted domestically in 2021: a roundoff (or “Yurchenko-style”) entry onto the apparatus, with a second flip added in “post-flight.” This vault had informally been called the “Yurchenko double pike” (or YDP for short), until the second this happened:

The 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships witnessed an iconic moment. In the All-Around finals, three young, talented Black women ascended to the top of the podium: Simone Biles, Rebecca Andrade of Brazil, and Shilese Jones. Millions around the globe proudly celebrated the moment, recognizing the significance of three athletes of color standing together.  Biles expressed her excitement, saying, “We had our Black podium of girls. So, I thought that was amazing. Black girl magic. So, hopefully, it just teaches all the young girls out there that you can do anything.”

When we look at the landscape of USA Gymnastics today where the women’s world championship team was predominantly composed of gymnasts from diverse ethnic backgrounds, it’s difficult to fathom a time not so distant when there were no black gymnasts competing at the elite level. Not too long ago, in 2008, the USA Squad consisted entirely of white athletes representing the United States at the Beijing Olympics. Then came Gabby Douglas.

How the spark of change was ignited

According to The Washington Post, Gabby Douglas emerged as a star of the 2012 Olympics, becoming the first Black all-around champion at the Olympics. Her victory resonated with kids who finally saw someone who looked like them succeeding in the sport. This led to a surge in enrollments for young kids in academies and training centers. Biles even shared in an interview, “I remember when Gabby Douglas won I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, if she can do it, then I can do it.’” However, the real transformation occurred with the arrival of the most decorated gymnast of all time, Biles herself.

Biles became the first woman of color to win an all-around title at the world championships, just a year after Gabby Douglas claimed the top spot at the Olympic Games. Despite facing hate and degrading remarks, Biles persevered, and her “Black girl magic” became an inspiration world-wide. Cecile Landi, who served as Biles’ co-coach, remarked, “Simone has opened the eyes of so many women of color, saying, ‘Hey, you can do this, too.’” In 2021, at the US Championships, all three athletes on the podium were women of color. Biles took first place, Sunisa Lee, who later became the first Asian American to win all-around Olympic gold, secured second place, and Jordan Chiles came in third. Lee also became the first Hmong-American Olympian. And from there on out the historic moments continued.

Simone Biles inspires a new era of diversity in gymnastics.

In 2022 at the US Gymnastics Championships, three Black gymnasts stood on the all-around podium for the first time. Konnor McClain, Shilese Jones, and Olympic silver medalist Jordan Chiles made history once again. When Jordan Chiles joined the WCC owned by Biles’ parents in 2019 her mother said, “At our home gym, Jordan was the only one. It was refreshing to be able to see people of all colors. But to see the amount of little Black girls doing gymnastics, it just did my heart so good. It’s hard to explain. It just felt like ‘Wow.’” The presence of young Black girls and women of different ethnicities in the sport has grown, with athletes like Jordan Chiles, Zoe Miller, Tiana Sumanasekera and others who now train and compete alongside Biles. However, the “Biles effect” hasn’t remained limited to women’s gymnastics.

In 2023, the U.S. men’s gymnastics team won bronze at the world championships, ending a two-decade-long medal drought. Three gymnasts of color and different ethnicities graced the podium at the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics All-Around Final, marking a historic moment. Fred Richard from the United States put an end to the decade-long drought and wrote his name in history. Khoi Young, a 20-year-old native of Bowie, also made a significant impact, winning two silver medals during the 52nd Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium. The team also included Yul Moldauer, a South Korean-born American artistic gymnast who proudly represented the United States at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. Seeing the ever-emerging diversity in gymnastics today the legacy of “Black girl magic” continues to inspire generations. Ushering a new era of diverse gymnasts to reach for the stars in the world of gymnastics and beyond.

Simone Biles has taken aim at a newspaper after the publication shared an article about her featuring a photo of her teammate.

Biles made her much-anticipated return to international competition at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp after her two-year hiatus from the sport to prioritise her mental health.

The American returned in style as she won four golds and one silver to claim her 37th medal in World Championships and Olympic Games, surpassing the previous record set by Belarusian Vitaly Scherbothe and becoming the most decorated gymnast in history.

However, the 26-year-old was left frustrated when American publication, the Wall Street Journal, shared an article on social media about her achievements but mistakenly used a picture of her US teammate Shilese Jones.

Writing on X/Twitter, Biles said: “This picture isn’t even me…….. try again.”

Jones was part of the US women’s team that stormed to a record seventh straight victory in the team event, with the 21-year-old also picking up two bronze medals in the uneven bars and individual all-around event.

For Biles, however, the week in Belgium still marks a remarkable comeback to the sport and will raise hopes of her participation in next summer’s Paris Olympic Games. The American only made her return to competitive action at the US Classic in Chicago but was back to her best at the World Championships.

On top of her team gold, Biles also picked up the first-place prize in the individual all-around, balance beam, and floor events, while finishing second in the vault and fifth in the uneven bars.

Her medal tally in worlds and Olympics now sits at 37 – four more than previous record holder Scherbo – with the American surpassing the Belarusian’s total in the same city where she won her first World Championship gold ten years prior.

Elsewhere at the tournament, Jake Jarman claimed Britain’s only medal of the World Gymnastics Championships with gold in the men’s vault, while Max Whitlock finished fifth in the pommel horse in his return to international competition.

Find out what the gymnastics superstar is looking forward to after a record-breaking 2023 World Championships

Simone Biles return trip to World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, this past week was a complete success as the superstar American won five medals at the 2023 edition, including four golds in the team, all-around, balance beam, and floor exercise finals.

It was her first international competition since the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in 2021 where she withdrew from the women’s team final and four subsequent individual finals to priortise her mental health as she dealt with what gymnasts call the ‘twisties,’ where the body and mind fall out of sync.

In her return to the sport, Biles has repeatedly talked about being more intentional in what she does, especially outside the gym.

“I think I’m making a bigger effort into taking care of my mind and my body, which includes going to therapy once every week, usually on Thursday is kind of like my therapeutic day and try to take a day for myself,” Biles told Olympics.com in an exclusive interview prior to the Worlds. “I think it’s just really important that I’m taking care of my mind as much as I do my body, especially in this sport and outside of the sport, just being real active in that.”

Gymnastics, in many ways, is a mirage-like display of power and athleticism coupled with elegance and beauty, a perfect exterior of twisting shapes concealing the extraordinary efforts beneath.

It was an image of the sport’s most successful athletes too until Simone Biles began to remodel it two years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, an unintended consequence of pulling out of several events suffering from what is known as the “twisties” – a mental block causing a gymnast to lose track of their positions midair.

The most successful gymnast of her time had shown her fallibility on the biggest stage of all, and as she completed a history-making comeback at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships last week, she completed refashioning those expectations of success.

By returning to the world stage in such emphatic style, Biles reimagined that image of a model athlete into someone who can land unprecedented skills at the highest level and is open about her own mental health, someone who is older than traditionally successful gymnasts but still defining her sport.

The mirage of the performance remains but, with the backstage efforts required to conjure it more visible, it is a more complex, and arguably more impressive, image.

Records as well as medals announced Biles’ return to the pinnacle of the sport in Antwerp, Belgium.

She became the first woman to land the Yurchenko double pike vault at an international competition, ensuring that it will now be named the Biles II in her honor, and became the most decorated male or female gymnast ever, surpassing Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo’s record of 33 overall medals across both the Olympics and the world championships.

She won four gold medals during the world championships too – in the team, all-around, beam and floor competitions – as well as a silver medal in the vault. In her weakest discipline – the uneven bars finals – she finished fifth.

Five months ago, Biles didn’t think she’d ever compete again, she said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

She had taken a two-year break from the sport after Tokyo to focus on her mental health. During that time, Biles has been open about re-evaluating her relationship to gymnastics, “going to therapy, making sure everything is aligned so that I can do the best in the gym and be a good wife, good daughter, good friend, all of the good things,” as she told NBC in September.

Nevertheless, ghosts from Tokyo still lingered at the world championships, she said afterwards, memories bubbling to the surface and making her “nervous” for the team finals on Wednesday.

“That’s when everything occurred, so I was a little bit traumatized from that,” she said on Friday, according to the official Olympics website.

Returning to the international stage in Antwerp provided a neat bookend for her career to date, a fitting place to re-establish herself as the world’s best gymnast as it was in Antwerp that Biles first announced herself on the world stage 10 years ago, winning her first all-around world title as a precocious 16-year-old, as well as a gold, silver and bronze medal in the floor, vault and beam respectively.

“I’m very proud,” she said on her return to Antwerp. “Especially after the year I had after Tokyo, coming back and just being comfortable and confident in my routines. I couldn’t ask for more,” she told BBC Sport.

Now, attention turns to Paris. Biles has already said that competing at next year’s Paris Olympics is a “a path I would love to go (down),” and returning to the biggest stage of all would add yet another dimension to her already remarkable legacy.

In the aftermath of an astounding comeback in which she won four gold medals and a silver after a two-year international absence, Simone Biles had every reason to celebrate her renewed dominance and a historic performance that marked her as the most decorated gymnast of all time.

Instead, as she faced up to the press on Sunday evening at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships in Antwerp, Biles was firm. She did not care about the medals.

“I had to prove to myself that I could still get out here, twist,” she said. “I could prove all the haters wrong, that I’m not a quitter, this, that and the other. For me, I didn’t care. As long as I’m out there twisting again and finding the joy for gymnastics again, who cares?”

Two years ago, when she was forced to withdraw from the Olympics after suffering from the “twisties”, completely losing her air awareness, Biles retreated from the sport. Even this year, she was unsure that she would return to gymnastics. As she worked hard to address her deteriorated mental health, she embraced therapy, focusing on living in the moment rather than looking ahead. She has learned how to sometimes say “no”.

The joy that Biles was able to compete with throughout the event was her biggest triumph of all. By advocating for herself and having the clarity to prioritise her mental and physical health during one of the most important moments of her career, Biles has likely prolonged her career. Her decisions over the last two years will have a greater lasting impact both within and beyond her sport than any peerless new skill.

Such was Biles’s determination to remain in the moment and not look ahead, she has been hesitant to even mention the Paris Olympics since she returned to competition. Still, the obvious consequence of the results in Antwerp is that Biles has re-established herself as the dominant force in the sport right as Paris approaches.

But she is not the only star. Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade shared all five podiums with Biles in Antwerp, and it was thrilling to see the 24-year-old push the best gymnast in the world with the promise that there is more to come. Biles genuinely seemed to enjoy the presence of a worthy rival. While they competed fiercely, both athletes were gracious and thoughtful throughout. After the event, Biles and Andrade danced at the post-event gala.

Older gymnasts will continue to dominate the pre-Paris narratives. Gabby Douglas, the 2012 Olympic all-around champion, announced in July that she is back in training and planning to return in 2024 having not competed since the Rio Olympics. The relentless criticism and abuse from both the 2012 and 2016 Olympic Games also had a destructive effect on Douglas’s mental health, leading to a far longer retreat from the sport.

Eight years is a long time between competitions, but Douglas is only a year older than Biles and the 27-year-old is so talented that it will be taken seriously. Sunisa Lee, the all-around champion in Tokyo, will also attempt to return to a second Olympics after serious kidney issues this year.

After such incredible performances in Tokyo and then last year in Liverpool, Antwerp proved to be a disappointing outing for British gymnasts until Jake Jarman produced an incredible vaulting performance on the final day. Jarman has been capable of astonishingly difficult skills for a long time yet things are coming together. The 21-year-old is now armed with the confidence of being a world champion and he continues to improve as an all-around gymnast.

Despite his fall in the pommel horse final, Max Whitlock’s performances in Antwerp made it clear that he will be in the fight as he attempts to defend his Olympic gold-medal on the pommel horse for a third time. The contest for gold with the clean, elegant Rhys McClenaghan of Ireland, now a two-time world champion, will be one of the highlights of the event.