This chart shows just how high Simone Biles can jump

Yes, Simone Biles can jump over a dinosaur.
 By 
Marcus Gilmer
 on 
Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

American gymnast Simone Biles has dominated the Rio Olympics with five medals (four of them gold) but just as impressive as her medal haul is how she's gone about winning them: with gravity-defying flips, including one named after her.

While Biles has impressed with the air she gets on the vault and the balance beam, it's her execution of a move known as "The Biles" that's been causing to jaws to drop. While she's been pulling off the move for a while now, it got its biggest audience during the Rio competition.

The Biles is "a double layout with a half-twist and a blind landing," according to the New York Times. Sounds incredible enough already, but, as another excellent Times piece pointed out, it's execution is unlike anything else you saw in Rio.


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Biles is only 4 feet, 8 inches tall, but is powerful enough to build momentum to squeeze more moves into her tumbling pass, including those incredible jumps.

Oregon State University physicist Faye Barras, Ph.D., spoke with Inverse about Biles' ability to seemingly defy physics and she was as floored as the rest of us:

What I was amazed at is that last double layout. I mean, she has to get so much height there in order to be able to spin twice with her full body length extended. It looks, from the video, almost like she has to get her whole body height up, which is incredible.

Quartz notes that it's Biles' strength-to-weigh ratio which "lets her jump to about double her actual height" while keeping her body straight during the layout. And the Times backs up the assertion that when Biles is "at the peak of this pass," Biles reaches "nearly twice her own height."

Twice her own height is just shy of 10 feet, at 9 feet, 4 inches.

So that got us thinking: we should put Biles' incredible jump into perspective. Here's a look at how the height she gets executing "The Biles" compares to a few random tall things.

Original image replaced with Mashable logo
Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Topics Olympics

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Marcus Gilmer

Marcus Gilmer is Mashable's Assistant Real-Times News Editor on the West Coast, reporting on breaking news from his location in San Francisco. An Alabama native, Marcus earned his BA from Birmingham-Southern College and his MFA in Communications from the University of New Orleans. Marcus has previously worked for Chicagoist, The A.V. Club, the Chicago Sun-Times and the San Francisco Chronicle.

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