RIO DE JANEIRO — Simone Biles starts each year by pulling out a notebook to write down her goals for the next 12 months. When 2016 dawned, for once she didn’t get too specific.
Make the Olympic team. That’s it. Better to just leave things vague.
Besides, who could have written this? Eight days. Five medals. Four of them gold. The last one draped over her neck following one final show-stopping floor exercise on Tuesday.
Whether Biles will leave the games as the best gymnast of all time is up for debate, a topic she will happily leave to others.
“I would never rank myself,” Biles said. “It’s weird.”
She’d rather let her envelope-pushing performance at Rio Olympic Arena do the talking. Her final act was perhaps her greatest.
On legs she joked felt like rocks, Biles put together 90 seconds of effortless joy. Her ceiling scraping tumbling and charismatic dancing — set to Brazilian-themed music designed for exactly this moment — ended with her bouncing off the mat before sprinting to the awaiting arms of longtime coach Aimee Boorman.
The two embraced, their journey that began when Biles was 6 ending — at least for now — with history.
Biles became the fifth female gymnast to win four golds at a single Olympic meet and the fourth to win them on the traditional events.
Throw in the bronze Biles earned on balance beam Monday and the 19-year-old will have a lengthy checklist when she gets to customs on her way home to Texas.
“I think that she was really consistent, that was a big thing for her,” Boorman said.
“That was the goal. Not to come in and win five golds but to show what she trained.”
As for what comes next — besides the stardom that awaits back in the U.S. — Biles is unsure.
She’d like to go have a normal life for a bit, at least as normal as it can be when she gets back to suburban Houston. Turning one of the biggest sporting events in the world into your personal showcase has a way of changing things.
“It’s kind of scary with this public eye being on me all the time,” Biles said.
“It’s rewarding but I think we’ll get used to it.”
If she needs advice, she doesn’t have to look far. All she has to do is ask good friend and “Final Five” teammate Aly Raisman.
The 22-year-old team captain picked up her third medal in Brazil and sixth overall with silver on floor, a moment she wasn’t sure would arrive when she began her methodical comeback two years ago.
“This time was harder than 2012, the training part of it,” Raisman said.
“It was kind of hard to top [2012]. It’s nice that it was all worth it.”
Raisman’s six medals are the second-most by an American female gymnast at the Olympics. The nine medals the U.S. women captured in Rio are the program’s most in an Olympic meet, a fitting send off for retiring national team coordinator Martha Karolyi.
Ultimately though, these games belonged to Biles, who planned to celebrate with pizza and some time off. After that, who knows?
“It’s pretty insane what I’ve accomplished in my first Olympics,” she said. “I don’t know. It’s crazy.”
The Associated Press United States’ Simone Biles performs on the floor during the artistic gymnastics women’s apparatus final at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday.
