Twenty-four people to follow in 2024 | Albilad Weekly

There are plenty of reasons to follow Simone Biles (USA, 26 years old). The most successful artistic gymnast in history, who has 37 medals between the World Championships (30) and the Olympic Games (7), has the opportunity to increase her record next summer in Paris 2024. Two years ago, she moved away from the racks and bars for mental health reasons. Left Tokyo 2020 Olympics. Stopped to recover. And it stopped well. His life was not easy. Her story makes her a resilient woman: raised by her grandparents because of her parents’ addiction and a victim of abuse by Union doctor Larry Nassar.

He returned smiling more than ever to participate in the World Cup finals in Antwerp last October. Ten years after his first international tournament in the same place, but without brackets he is 16, and with the sobriety and maturity of 26. He covered himself in gold and won five medals. And not only that: she made history by naming her “Biles 2,” a jump never done by a woman, an extraordinary feat even among men. The most complex exercise, which gives the highest degree of difficulty in the entire women’s competition.

The World Cup is over, but the countdown has begun. “I’m not the next Bolt or Phelps, I’m the first Simone Biles,” the gymnast said at the 2016 Rio Games when she was just 19 years old, where she was declared champion in her Olympic debut. After a decade in gymnastics, her reappearance was a prelude to her greatest goal: the Paris Games this summer.

Every rotation, every diagonal will bring it closer to the top again. She dominates the floor exercises, balance beam and vault, and no apparatus escapes her. Even if he stumbles, he will laugh again. With security reset, Biles will remove the thorn that was present in her recent games. She will be able to prove, when she lands on the carpet in Paris, if there is still any doubt, that she is the best gymnast in history.

Irene Guevara