Simone Biles has been named Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year for 2024. An Olympic year, and Simone was one of the biggest stories of the Olympics. Is there also an American-centric bias? For sure. But I agree with this choice and I absolutely believe that Simone was one of the biggest sports stories of the year, her comeback Olympic games in Paris after she got the twisties in Tokyo and couldn’t compete at her normally-elite level. All eyes were on Simone in Paris. All of the gymnasts from other countries were holding their breath and waiting to see what Simone would do too.

You can read the Sports Illustrated SOTY profile and interview here. If you’ve watched Simone’s Netflix docuseries, you know what she’s been through in the past ten years and how everything fell apart before, during and after the Tokyo games. Simone is a champion for so many reasons – not just because she wins gold medals and executes flawless routines. She stands up for survivors, she celebrates her gymnastics colleagues and friends, she talks openly about her mental health and therapy, and all of that makes her one of the most important athletes in the world.

On a superficial note, I think it’s interesting that Sports Illustrated’s photographers did a more beautiful editorial with Simone than any of the women’s magazines or fashion magazines did with her. Is it because SI’s photographers know how to photograph Black women and fashion photographers don’t know how to do that?

I was honestly surprised that Simone wasn’t named Time Magazine’s Athlete of the Year too – Time gave that honor to Caitlin Clark. Interesting.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, cover courtesy of Sports Illustrated.