She landed twice out of bounds during her final performance of the 2024 Olympic Games, and it almost is certain the silver medal that resulted for U.S. gymnast Simone Biles will be her last competitive outcome as an active Olympian.
It’s hard to imagine she has any more history to write.
This does not mean her place in history is set.
When TSN launched our project to identify the greatest United States Summer Olympians in the 128 years of the modern Summer Games, we recognized one could view our list as slightly obsolete before it even was one month old.
The Paris Olympics were certain to change some things.
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Top 33 rankings | Simone Biles | Katie Ledecky | Jesse Owens
We prefer to view this as sort of a living organism. So long as there are Olympics – and let us hope they endure forever – there are going to be athletes involved who push the boundaries of what can be achieved. And this is particularly true now that they no longer are bound to ridiculous rules that often forced competitors to decide between earning a living and continuing in the sports they loved.
Had Biles arrived on the Olympic scene three decades earlier, she might have had a single shot at the Games to display her excellence to the world. The advent of professionalism in the Games assured everyone the opportunity to see the greatest athletes at their best, for as long as they were able to reach those standards.
Is Simone Biles the greatest US Olympian?
Biles won three gold medals and a silver in Paris, becoming only the third woman to win a second gold as all-around champion. She now has won more medals than any American gymnast and is tied for second in the world.
Even before winning her second all-around competition, TSN ranked her No. 5 among U.S. athletes in the Summer Games, behind No. 1 Jesse Owens, No. 2 Michael Phelps, No. 3 Carl Lewis and No. 4 Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
When we revisit this list in advance of the 2028 Games in Los Angeles, Biles likely will have risen to No. 3, passing Lewis and Joyner-Kersee.
She was phenomenal in Paris, even in finishing second in the floor exercise Monday, in her final event of these Games. Biles had aggravated a calf injury that bothered her throughout the competition and had to have it re-wrapped before beginning her routine. None of the dynamism was missing from her tumbling runs; she still soared far above the mat as she tumbled, causing even seven-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady to drop his jaw in disbelief.
However, the discomfort from her injury might have caused her to be less precise. Twice stepping out of bounds cost her a .6 deduction that took her score from an easy victory to second behind Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade.
When Biles needed to be at her best, though, in pushing the U.S. to gold in the team competition – she was the only athlete to be involved on all four apparatus – and in the coveted all-around event, she was both spectacular and precise.
MORE: Simone Biles shuts down her critics with golden performance
Where is Katie Ledecky among best US Olympians?
Katie Ledecky became the most decorated United States Olympic women’s swimmer in history when she participated in the 4×200 freestyle relay and helped the U.S. finish second. She extended that record in a more glorious fashion when she prevailed over a powerful field to win the 800-meter freestyle, her fourth consecutive gold medal in that event. She won the 1500 in her typical dominant fashion as well. (And, let’s be honest, if it hadn’t taken Olympic swimming a century to add the women’s 1500 meters to the program, she’d have had at least another gold in that race). Her career totals — nine gold, four silver, one bronze, in distances ranging from 1500 to swimming a leg on a 4×100 relay.
Ledecky’s excellence in Paris, added to what she achieved in Tokyo, Rio and London, probably should advance her from No. 8 on the list to No. 6, surpassing the previous occupant Mark Spitz and elite sprinter Wilma Rudolph.
Spitz won nine gold medals over two Olympics, including a phenomenal seven golds in seven races at the 1972 Games. He was only 22 years old at that point, and might have had a shot at another round of dominance at Montreal 1976. But the only real money in being an Olympian then was in doing product endorsements, and taking those opportunities meant forfeiting one’s competitive eligibility.
Ledecky has not been encumbered in that fashion. But neither did she ever have an Olympics – in four tries – in which she failed to deliver an extraordinary performance. Spitz did not win any of his individual races at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968. Ledecky won the 800 meters, her specialty, in 2012 at age 15. She added individual golds in the 200 and 400 meters to an 800 repeat at Rio 2016, and then the 1500 when she got her first shot at that distance at the 2020 Games. And she may not be done.
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Is Ryan Crouser one of the greatest US Olympians?
Shotput superstar Ryan Crouser won his third consecutive gold medal in his event with a throw of 75 feet, 1¾ inches. That throw would not have beaten his own result from Tokyo three years earlier, but it was his second winning mark that was better than 75 feet – no one else in the history of the event has reached that distance at the Olympics.
There have been only 21 others who’ve topped 70 feet, including six at this year’s meet. Crouser has done it in each of his appearances.
Given that four-time discus champion Al Oerter ranked No. 9 on the TSN list, Crouser at least would have to rank somewhere in the mid-20s, ahead of swimmers Dara Torres (No. 27) and Ryan Lochte (No. 28), and maybe even No. 26 Muhammad Ali. That would not necessarily mean knocking the current No. 33, the great Evelyn Ashford, entirely off the list. We ranked the greatest 33 U.S. Summer Olympians because this was the 33rd Olympiad. So it’ll be a 34-person list next time around.
If Crouser, 31, returns in Los Angeles and secures a fourth straight gold, Oerter might be down under his fellow weight thrower when we revisit this again in 2032, when the Games will be in Brisbane, Australia.
