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| - In August 2024, a number of social media accounts posted a video allegedly showing Olympic U.S. gymnast Simone Biles competing as a child. In the video, the girl identified as Biles falls after attempting a vault and can be seen wiping away tears as she leaves the mat.
One post, a Facebook reel (archived) posted on Aug. 1, 2024, which had received around 107,000 likes and 6,600 shares at the time of this writing, appeared to be a repost of an August 2023 TikTok post consisting of a cellphone recording of the video playing on a laptop.
Little Simone
Both the 2023 TikTok and the 2024 Facebook reel included captions that read: "Watch tiny Simone Biles getting upset at falling on her vault" and "the little pout, I love her so much."
In another post, made to X on Aug. 5, 2024, the video was set to a snippet of Queen's "We Are the Champions." At the time of this writing, that post had received around 26.3 million views, 168,000 likes, and 800 replies, many of which described the video as inspiring.
Watch tiny Simone Biles getting upset at falling on her vault pic.twitter.com/TWMXlFyj4M
— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) August 6, 2024
One commenter wrote: "A perfect example of the power of being deeply humbled. Being overconfident and learning to embrace those pains leads to mastery in ways a lack of being humbled cannot. Absolutely inspiring." Another wrote: "10 years later she is the best gymnasts of all time."
Snopes has reached out to a representative for Biles to ask for confirmation that the girl in the video is indeed Biles as a child. We will update this story if and when we hear back.
However, we found two pieces of evidence that suggested the video was likely authentic.
For one, the footage was included as part of a longer video titled, "Simone Biles' earliest days in gymnastics - rare footage," which was posted by the official NBC Sports YouTube account on July 18, 2019. The footage shown in the social media posts appears starting around the 01:13 timestamp. NBC Sports did not include any verifiable information regarding where and when the video was recorded, however.
The other piece of evidence consisted of archival clips included in the 2021 Facebook Watch docuseries "Simone vs Herself." Although we have not been able to find the exact clip from the social media posts in the series, multiple points throughout the show's archival footage showed a young Biles wearing a leotard and a hairstyle that strongly resembled those worn by the girl in the video. An example can be seen around the 00:28 timestamp in the series' .
We will update this story if and when we receive confirmation from Biles' team that the video authentically depicts her competing as a child. For now, we rate this claim as "Research in Progress."
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