Simone Biles

On 11th August, 2016, a young gymnast took her starting position on the floor in the individual women's all-around final at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The crowd knew they were about to see something special. The spectators were witnessing history being made. Before them was then three-time world and four-time national all-around champion Simone Biles. The four-foot-eight-inch nineteen-year-old from Spring, Texas, was ninety seconds away from her dream of winning gold coming true.

For a women's artistic gymnast, a medal in the all-around competition is the most highly prized of all the six events in the Olympic Games. Only the two highest-scoring gymnasts from each national team are allowed to take part. Simone was on a winning streak, unbeaten in all-around competition since 2013, and she was determined to win again.

Simone had nailed her floor routine in practice countless times, but no matter how often she and her teammates told each other that it was "just like practice" to calm their nerves, pulling off the routine in a competition was different.

The first known Olympic Games were held in 776 BCE in Olympia, Greece - a town named after Mount Olympus, the highest mountain in the country and the mythical home of many ancient Greek gods and goddesses. To honour the greatest of these gods - Zeus -the Greeks built a sanctuary at Olympia where they could gather and worship him.

Every four years, the best male athletes travelled to Olympia to compete. Women were not allowed to participate nor even attend. At first the Olympic Games had just one event - a 192-metre (600 ft.) running race in the stadion, the ancient Greek predecessor of a modern-day stadium. Athletes had to compete naked!

Between 724 BCE and 393 CE, more events were added, including chariot racing, wrestling, boxing and javelin throwing. The games ended in 393 CE on the orders of the Roman emperor Theodosius I, a Christian who banned all celebration of the ancient gods.

The first modern Olympic Games took place in 1896. As with the ancient games, only men were allowed to compete. In the Greek city of Athens, 241 athletes from 14 countries gathered to take part in 43 events, including swimming, shooting, weightlifting and gymnastics.

Winners in each event received a silver medal, a certificate and an olive branch. Runners-up received a copper medal, a certificate and a branch of laurel. Olive and laurel branches were symbols of victory for the ancient Greeks. Unlike in today's Olympics, competitors who came in third place received nothing.

The first medalist was an American named James Connolly, who won the triple jump on day one of the games. He was the first Olympic champion in more than 1,500 years. To pay tribute to the ancient games, the face of Zeus was carved on one side of the medal. The Acropolis in Athens - the site of a number of ancient temples - was engraved on the other side.

Women's physical strength and competitive spirit have not always been celebrated. Throughout history, many people believed that being strong and competitive was something only men should aim for. At the turn of the twentieth century, attitudes began to change. As women started to take part in sports, the demand for opportunities to compete increased. Women's events were added to the Olympic Games in 1900; women could compete in tennis, sailing, croquet, golf and horseback riding.

Around this time, artistic gymnastics grew in popularity. Women saw the activity as a way to keep fit and healthy, and practised it in social clubs in Europe and the United States. It was also introduced in some schools. The term artistic was originally used to differentiate its moves from exercises used by the military. Now there are other types of gymnastics, including rhythmic, where gymnasts use equipment such as a ribbon, a hoop or a ball as part of their routines.

Women's artistic gymnastics was introduced at the 1928 Olympic Games, held in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. The competition didn't look very much like the one Simone Biles would dominate almost ninety years later. While men competed in seven gymnastics events, women were permitted to take part in just one - the team competition.

In this event, sixty women were divided into five national teams. They competed in three events - drill, apparatuses and jumps, with the scores across all these events contributing to their final result. Women performed together and were judged for grace, balance and teamwork rather than for their individual performances. Instead of the formfitting leotards gymnasts compete in today, women gymnasts at the 1928 Games wore baggy shorts and shirts. The Netherlands brought home the first women's artistic gymnastics gold medal.

The United States sent its first women's team to the Olympic Games in 1948. The US women took silver in the team event, which was still the only gymnastics competition women were allowed to take part in.

The women's artistic gymnastics competition didn't start to resemble today's until the 1952 games in Helsinki, Finland, when women competed in seven events: individual all-around, team all-around, balance beam, floor exercise, uneven bars, vault and team portable apparatus (similar to today's Olympic rhythmic gymnastics competition). From small beginnings, women's artistic gymnastics has grown to be one of the most watched sports in the Summer Olympic Games.

The Olympics isn't the only competition in a gymnast's calendar. For US athletes, like Simone, there are several other big events, both international and national:

• World Artistic Gymnastics Championships This competition was first held in Antwerp, Belgium, in 1903, but once again only men were allowed to compete. A women's team event was added in 1934, as well as a women's individual all-around competition. The championships are held annually in non-Olympic years.
• US Gymnastics Championships This elite-level, national artistic gymnastics competition has been held annually in the US since 1963 and is the national championships for American men's and women's gymnastics. Every fourth year, the competition qualifies top-finishers to the US Olympic Trials from which the US Olympic team is determined.
• US Classic This is an annual summer meet for elite female artistic gymnasts. It is used as a qualifier for the US Gymnastics Championships.
• American Cup This elite-level international gymnastics event is held annually in the US. It is exclusively an all-around competition.

The crowd was with Simone from the moment she began her 2016 Olympic floor routine. They clapped along to the rhythmic samba music and cheered as she stuck the landing of each difficult tumbling pass.

Simone smiled at the crowd - she was working hard but she was also having fun. Gymnastics was her passion and had been since the first time she set foot in a gym at six years old.

After Simone's strong performance on the other apparatuses, she needed to score only 13.833 on the floor exercise to take home gold - a relatively easy feat for her. But just as in practice, Simone was determined to do more than was asked of her. As she put it, "If they said 'Do five pull-ups', I would always want to do ten."

When Simone's routine ended, the crowd exploded in applause. Simone waved to the audience and ran into the waiting arms of her coach, Aimee Boorman, and teammate Alexandra "Aly" Raisman. Out of a maximum possible score of 16.800, Simone got a massive 15.933! It was more than enough to win her the gold medal and her place in the history books, while Aly took silver.

Simone had proven, yet again, that she was a gymnast unlike any other. The average margin of victory in the individual all-around competition since 1972 is 0.2 points. Simone's final score was more than two full points higher than Aly's and almost four points higher than bronze-medal winner Aliya Mustafina's score. Simone hadn't just won; she had eclipsed the competition.

Her floor routine would have been impossible for almost any other gymnast in history to perform.