Getty Image / Loic Venance
Simone Biles is not yet finished with her outstanding performance at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, France. She will be looking for her fourth and fifth gold medals on Monday in event finals on Balance Beam and Floor exercise.
Those could be the last two events of her illustrious gymnastics career that has many people considering her the greatest gymnast of all-time. But, people want to know if she plans on coming back in four years for a home Olympics when Los Angeles takes center stage in 2028.
It’s a fair question, as she’s still the best gymnast in the world by a good margin at 27 years old. Even with a pretty big mistake on the Uneven Bars in the Olympic All-Around Final, she still beat out Brazil’s excellent Rebeca Andrade by over a point, which is a pretty substantial margin in the sport. And, despite Andrade doing her two vaults as good as she possibly could’ve, Simone beat her by a good margin in vault finals, too. Floor should be another blowout win, and she has a good chance to win gold on Balance Beam as well.
In four years, she will be 31, which would be pretty old, but not unheard of in International Elite Gymnastics. Simone Biles is every bit as good, and maybe even better, than she was in Rio at her first Olympics eight years ago, and could definitely win more medals, even golds in four years.
But, Biles, who is now married to Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens, could want to move on with her life outside of competitive sport, and competing at this level would require a lot of rigorous training. She’d likely have to start resuming training in the spring of 2027, at the very latest, to be fully ready to go for 2028. That’s a big ask when you’ve already won as many medals as she has, a tally that could rise to 12 by the time Monday ends.
Simone Biles was asked about the chances she comes back on Saturday, and she certainly didn’t rule it out. But, on Sunday, she pleaded with journalists to stop asking her and other athletes about future plans right after they’ve won medals.
let us soak up the moment we’ve worked our whole lives for
— Simone Biles (@Simone_Biles) August 4, 2024
She raises a good point, for sure. But, journalists are also simply doing their job asking a question that people are very interested in knowing the answer to.
Only time will tell if Simone Biles is in Los Angeles competing in four years. For now, enjoy Monday’s finals as if it’s the last time you’ll ever see her compete.