After the events in Tokyo, it had looked like we might have seen Biles at her final Olympics.
However, you are not going draw a celebrity crowd and transcend your sport unless you really are something special.
When she returned to gymnastics last summer after a two-year break, it was soon clear that she was still at her best. In fact, you could argue, even better.
She had soon won a sixth world all-around title and showcased some of her most difficult gymnastics, and she had also added a new skill, the Biles II vault – a fifth move to be named after her.
Even coming into these Olympics she submitted a new uneven bars move to the gymnastics federation, meaning she will become the only active gymnast to have eponymous skills on all four apparatus if she performs it here.
The limits she has pushed go beyond anything she lands on the mats.
Her willingness to talk about her mental health in Tokyo opened up conversations about the subject, having delivered a powerful message that personal wellbeing comes above medals.
She has given a detailed account in a recent Netflix documentary about what happened in Tokyo, the pressure of expectation and the impact of being called a “quitter” by some on social media and beyond at the time.
When speaking at a hearing into the Larry Nassar abuse scandal she said the “scars of this horrific abuse” by the former USA team doctor had been an “exceptionally difficult burden” without her family at the pandemic-hit Tokyo Games.
In the documentary she showed viewers the “forbidden Olympic closet” – the cupboard in her spare room where the kits, medals and other items related to those Games are stored. That is where she says she spent a lot of time crying.
She has detailed what she has gone through to get back to the point where she is winning Olympic gold again, saying after the team final that she had “started off with therapy this morning”.
Biles has returned to her sport on her terms.
“Nobody’s forcing me to do it,” she said earlier this year.
The team took the pressure off her by telling her she does not need to compete in every event and she did not speak to reporters after training or qualifying sessions.
These Games are different to Tokyo – her husband is here with her, fans are back in the stands, attitudes to mental health have changed.
And the world’s most decorated gymnast has a new Olympic gold medal.
