The American gymnast is one of the most decorated competitors in the history of her sport, with seven Olympic medals, including four golds. Additionally, she’s a six-time gold medalist in the all-around competition at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships.
For as much as Biles’ excellence can be summed up through numbers and her ever-lengthening resume, her brilliance is perhaps best understood by simply watching her. While any gymnast competing in the Olympics will be able to execute maneuvers that astonish the average viewer — or, at the very least, terrify them — the leaps, flips and twists that Biles is able to pull off showcase an even more astonishing level of athleticism and grace than any medal count could properly express.
In those moments, whether it’s launching herself into the sky off the floor or pulling off a complex sequence of moves mid-air in only a couple of seconds, it’s easy to see, even for an untrained eye, why she’s considered perhaps the greatest gymnast of all-time.
As with many gymnasts, those incredible feats come from someone with a diminutive physical stature.
As she prepares to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she can become just the third gymnast ever to win gold in the all-around multiple times, here’s more about Biles’ height and leaping ability:
While elite gymnasts are typically smaller, Biles is short even among that group. Four of the past five women to win the Olympic all-around gold medal, all of them Americans, have been at least 5 feet tall, a group that includes 5-foot-3 Nastia Liukin and 5-foot-2 Gabrielle Douglas.
How high can Simone Biles jump?
Though exceptional verticality is often associated with tall, rangy NBA players who fly through the air to throw down dunks or swat shots, there are few American athletes who display it quite as breathtakingly as Biles.
During her floor exercise routine at the 2024 US Olympic Gymnastics Trials in June, the top of Biles’ head got as high as 12 feet above the surface on one of her jumps. According to ESPN , that leap would have been high enough for her to jump over San Antonio Spurs superstar Victor Wembanyama, who, at 7-foot-4, is the tallest player in the NBA.
Competitive gymnastics floors have springs beneath them, which makes the surface safer for athletes for landing while giving them added inches on tumbles, but it’s still a remarkably impressive mark for Biles.
Simone Biles age
Biles, who will be competing in the Olympics for the third time, is 27 years old.
In Paris, she could become the oldest women’s all-around champion since 1952, the oldest American to win a medal in women’s gymnastics since 1948 and the oldest American woman to ever win a gold medal in gymnastics.
Team USA gymnastics heights
Here’s a look at the heights of four of the five members of the United States women’s gymnastics team, from shortest to tallest. Biles is the shortest member of the quartet.
Hezly Rivera, the fifth member of the team, does not have a listed height on her Team USA profile page.
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