Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, A Life in Balance.

BILES, Simone.

Item Number: 125422

Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan , 2016.

First edition of Simone Biles’ autobiography, published the same year she won four gold medals at the Olympics. Octavo, original boards, illustrated. Boldly signed by Simone Biles on the title page, instead of the far more common copies signed on the publisher’s tipped-in leaf. Fine in a fine dust jacket. Jacket design by Ron Huizinga. Written with Michelle Burford. Foreword by Mary Lou Retton.

Simon Biles "is the greatest American gymnast of all time. With a combined 25 world championship and Olympic medals, including 18 golds, Biles stands alone atop the medal standings. She got to this point by fearlessly performing elements that no one else has dared go near." In Courage to Soar, Biles movingly writes of "the challenges she faced: early years in foster care (she was eventually adopted by her grandparents)… and the realization that she would just miss the age cutoff for the 2012 Olympics'" (New York Times). As Mary Lou Retton writes in the book's foreword: "Even before the 2016 Olympics, Simone has already amassed a total of 14 World metals, ten of them gold." At Rio in 2016, Retton continues, "She didn't just win—she dominated… She became the first American woman ever to win the vault title, and the only one to take home four gold medals in a single Olympic year… she is one of the greatest athletes of all time." In 2017 Time Magazine named Biles one of the Top 100 Most Influential People, and she was ESPN Magazine's most dominant athlete of 2018. Biles supported the decision to postpone the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, saying: "We need to be sure everyone in the U.S. and around the world is safe."