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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 26th through 30th 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.
