2016
In April, Biles began her season at the Pacific Rim Championships, where she won the all-around title and had the highest score on vault (where she debuted a more difficult second vault), floor exercise (where she debuted a new floor routine), and balance beam. Additionally, the U.S. won the team title by a wide margin. Biles did not compete in the event finals. On June 4, Biles competed at the Secret U.S. Classic in two events only, the uneven bars and beam. She placed first on balance beam with a 15.650 and placed fifth on uneven bars with a 15.1.In the following weeks at the 2016 U.S. National Championships, Biles won the all-around title by a wide margin of 3.9 points over Aly Raisman. She won the gold medal on vault and floor exercise, receiving scores of at least 16 all four times. She also won the gold medal on the balance beam and placed fourth on uneven bars.
On July 10, Biles was named to the team for the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, alongside Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez, Madison Kocian, and Aly Raisman.
In September 2016, Biles's medical information was released, and she was accused of doping to enhance performance by the Russian media following the Russian cyber espionage group Fancy Bear's hack into the World Anti-Doping Agency. Biles then disclosed on Twitter that she has attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and was permitted to take medication for it, having applied for and received a therapeutic use exemption. She was applauded for opening up about ADHD.
In the runup to the 2016 Rio Games, Biles appeared in a Tide commercial ("The Evolution of Power") with gymnasts Dominique Dawes and Nadia Comăneci.
On August 7, Biles competed in the Women's Qualification at the 2016 Summer Olympics, helping the U.S. team to qualify in first place to the final with a score of 185.238 (9.959 points ahead of the second-place team, China). She also qualified as the top gymnast in four of the five individual finals: the all-around with a score of 62.416, vault with an average score of 16.050, balance beam with a score of 15.633, and floor exercise with a score of 15.733.
On August 9, Biles won her first Olympic gold medal in the gymnastics team event. The only gymnast for Team USA to compete in all four events in the final, she contributed an all-around score of 61.833 (15.933 on vault, 14.800 on bars, 15.300 on beam, and 15.800 on floor) as the Americans won the gold with a score of 184.897, more than 8 points ahead of the silver-medal Russian team.
Biles won the gold medal in the individual all-around on August 11, ahead of teammate Aly Raisman and Russia's Aliya Mustafina. Biles earned a total score of 62.198 with 15.866 on the vault, 14.966 on the uneven bars, 15.433 on the balance beam, and 15.933 on the floor. Biles had the highest scores on vault, balance beam, and floor; she had the only score over 15 on balance beam in the finals. She and Raisman became the second pair of American gymnasts to win gold and silver in the individual all-around, after Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson in 2008.
In the vault final, she scored 15.900 for her Amânar and 16.033 for her Cheng to win her second individual gold medal with an average score of 15.966, more than 0.7 points ahead of second-place finisher Maria Paseka of Russia and third-place finisher Giulia Steingruber of Switzerland.
In the balance beam final, she grabbed the beam with her hands (a mandatory 0.5-point deduction) after underrotating her front tuck and scored 14.733. Despite her mistake, she won the bronze behind teammate Laurie Hernandez, who won the silver with a score of 15.333, and Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands, who won the gold with a score of 15.466).
In the floor exercise final, she won the gold with a score of 15.966. Teammate Aly Raisman won the silver with a score of 15.500 and Amy Tinkler of Great Britain won bronze scoring 14.933. With Biles's five total medals along with Madison Kocian's silver medal on the uneven bars, Team USA claimed a medal in every women's artistic gymnastics event for the first time since 1984.
With four Olympic gold medals, Biles set an American record for most gold medals in women's gymnastics at a single Games, and equaled several other records with her medals won in Rio. Biles winning four gold medals was the first instance of a quadruple gold medallist in women's gymnastics at a single Games since Ecaterina Szabo (Romania) in 1984, and fifth overall, after Larisa Latynina (USSR, 1956), Agnes Keleti (Hungary, 1956), Věra Čáslavská (Czechoslovakia, 1968) and Szabo. Biles became the sixth female gymnast to have won an individual all-around title at both the World Championships and the Olympics—the others being Larisa Latynina, Věra Čáslavská, Ludmilla Tourischeva, Elena Shushunova, and Lilia Podkopayeva. Biles is the first female gymnast since Lilia Podkopayeva (Ukraine) in 1996 to win gold in the all-around as well as in an event final, and the first female gymnast since Podkopayeva to win the Olympic all-around title while holding the World and European/American individual all-around titles. She joined Latynina (1956–1960), Čáslavská (1964–1968), and Ludmilla Tourischeva (1968–1972), as the fourth female gymnast to win every major all-around title in an Olympic cycle.
Biles joined Mary Lou Retton in 1984, Shannon Miller in 1992, and Nastia Liukin in 2008, in winning five women's gymnastics medals at a single Olympics, along with Szabo (Roumania, 1984), Nadia Comaneci (Roumania, 1976), and Karin Janz (East Germany, 1972). Olga Mostepanova (USSR) also won five gold medals at the Alternate Olympics in 1984. The overall record for most women's Olympic gymnastics medals at a single game (majority gold), remains six medals (Latynina, 1956, 1960, and 1964, Keleti, 1956, Čáslavská, 1968, Daniela Silivas, 1988).
Biles and her teammate Gabby Douglas are the only American female gymnasts to win both the individual all-around gold and team gold at the same Olympics. Douglas won both at the 2012 London Games.
Biles was chosen by Team USA to be the flag bearer in the closing ceremonies, becoming the first American female gymnast to receive this honor.
