Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, picked up yet another prize on Monday as she was awarded the Laureus World Comeback of the Year award. Biles took a a two-year break from the sport after the Tokyo 2020 Olympics to prioritise her mental health, but emphatically returned in 2023 with four gold medals at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium.
Four-time Olympic champion Simone Biles has been awarded the Laureus World Comeback of the Year prize following a two-year hiatus from the sport.
The American gymnast had a 2023 to remember as she returned to the sport after taking a break for mental health reasons following the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
Simone Biles won four gold medals in her first global event since the Olympics at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, last year.
Simone Biles also won her eighth U.S. Gymnastics title to break the 90-year-old US gymnastics title record previously held by Alfred Jochim.
The 27-year-old is a three-time winner of Sportswoman of the Year award (2017, 2019, 2020) and adds another statuette to her collection with the Comeback of the Year Award.
She is expected to try to add to her Olympic medal collection at this summer’s Paris Olympic Games.
Meanwhile, Arisa Trew became the first female skateboarder to win Laureus Action Sportsperson of the Year.
Trew, the 13-year-old Australian skateboarding star, made history in 2023 when she became the first female skater to land a 720 (two full rotations) in vert skateboarding.
Trew successfully pulled off the trick at the Tony Hawk Vert Alert in Utah.
One of the event’s hosts, Tony Hawk, who is a member of the Laureus World Sports Academy, was the first skateboarder to land the trick in 1985.
