Sports fans have a habit of saying that their favorite athlete was born to excel in their respective sport. The cabinets full of trophies that elite athletes collect throughout their careers make a good case in favor of that argument. However, no other gymnast deserves that title more than Simone Biles, because the gymnast is literally built to excel in her sport.
There’s a good reason why most gymnasts are on the shorter side, and standing at 4’8″ (142cm) the 7x Olympic medalist’s height, is ideal for gymnastics. While being shorter in track and field may hurt your stride, Biles’ height hasn’t limited her success. In fact, the 27-year-old is shorter than even the average elite gymnast.
Simone Biles’ 4’8″ stature falls just below the average female Olympian’s 4’9″ to 5’4″ (145 cm to 163 cm) stature. However, when it comes to weight, the world’s most decorated gymnast falls well within the average range. The average Olympic gymnast weighs between 88 lbs and 115 lbs (40 kg to 52 kg), and the world champion weighs 103.61 lbs (47 kg).
While a gymnast doesn’t need to cut weight like a pro boxer, maintaining a consistent weight is essential for gymnasts. Any drastic deviation in weight can affect everything from strength to agility. Although the 5x Olympic gold medalist’s weight has increased with age, so has her muscle mass, which has helped the gymnastics icon maintain her explosive strength.
Finally, age truly seems to be nothing more than a number for Simone Biles. The average elite Olympian performance peaks between their late teens and early twenties. The G.O.A.T. herself won four Olympic golds in Rio when she was 19. However, head coach Laurent Landi’s star athlete has made a roaring comeback at 27.
Last year in Antwerp, Biles won four golds at the World Championships against some of her biggest rivals. The legend repeated that feat at the 2024 Olympic Trials, taking the top spot against much younger gymnasts. While age should be a disadvantage, it’s barely made a difference. So how do all these factors come together to make Simone Biles so special?
Simone Biles: Born to dominate gymnastics?
Despite being shorter than the average elite gymnast, the 27-year-old has an advantage over them. The Ohio native carries an anatomical advantage every time she decides to launch herself into a vault, twirls on the floor, or lands on her toes during the balance beam. Her short stature lends to a lower center of gravity, which aids with both balance and agility.
One of the reasons the Yurchenko double pike was colloquially renamed Biles II is because her height helped the Olympian execute it like no other. All the World Champions Center gymnasts need to do to capitalize on their height advantage is maintain their ideal weight during competitions. Throughout her long and ongoing career, Simone Biles has never faced weight-gaining issues.
Talking about the 27-year-old’s long career brings us to the third advantage: experience. After qualifying for Paris 2024, the 30-time World Championships medalist became the oldest female U.S. gymnast to make an Olympic team in the last 72 years. While getting older in any sport doesn’t give you any advantages, Simone Biles finds herself in a unique place. The gymnast has more experience than the rest of the Paris-bound US Women’s Gymnastics team. However, while having years in the sport does give her a competitive edge, her long hiatus after the Tokyo Olympics may have been a blessing in disguise.
Today, Simone Biles is not only mentally at her strongest, but not grinding down her body through grueling training for a few years has rejuvenated the icon’s capacity to perform. Now, when you see Simone Biles perform in Paris, you’ll see how the gymnast’s anatomy and age have helped her defy expectations.
