Simon Biles aims to write more history at gymnastics worlds

STUTTGART, Germany — Simone Biles has already written her name into gymnastics history many times over. A few more times won’t hurt, though.

At the upcoming world championships in Germany, Biles can break the record for most medals won by any gymnast. More than that, she can write herself into the sport’s Code of Points forever.

Biles showed off her triple-twisting double-flip — the triple-double for short — when winning the U.S. title in August. If she lands it at worlds, it will go in the Code as “the Biles.” The same goes for her double-double beam dismount.

“Getting the skills named after me is really exciting, just to go out there and prove to myself that I can do them, especially under all of the pressure that will be there that night,” Biles said Tuesday. “I feel like putting my name on a skill is really rewarding just because it’ll be in the Code forever as well as the medals. It’s something that I can hold onto just because I’m the one that did it first, so it’s really exciting.”

Biles already has two skills in the Code, a floor exercise element from 2013 and a vault from last year’s world championships.

Biles goes to the championships tied with Russian Svetlana Khorkina for the most medals won by a woman with 20, and could also surpass Vitaly Scherbo’s record of 23 for the most medals by any gymnast.

It’s the last major championships before next year’s Olympics in Tokyo. With household names like track star Usain Bolt and swimming great Michael Phelps having retired since the last Olympics in Tokyo, she’ll be one of the Games’ undeniable standouts.

But she doesn’t want to think about that.

“I feel like if I were to label myself as a superstar, it would bring more expectations on me,” she said. “I would feel pressured, more in the limelight, rather than now. I just go out there and compete, try to represent Simone, not Simone Biles, whenever I go out there because at the end of the day I’m still a human being before I’m ‘Simone Biles the Superstar.'”

source: sports.inquirer.net

Simone Biles soars to 6th US gymnastics title

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The choice was entirely hers. Only there really wasn’t of one for Simone Biles to make.

Sure, she could have taken her triple-twisting double-flip (aka “the triple-double”) out of her floor exercise routine during the final night of the U.S. women’s gymnastics championships on Sunday. She surely didn’t need it to assure herself of another national title.

Still, even as her coach Laurent Landi left the option up to her after the Olympic champion’s bid to become the first woman to complete the triple-double in competition came up a bit short on Friday, he knew the answer.

Spend enough time in the gym around the 22-year-old who is redefining what’s possible in her sport one exhilarating routine at a time and it quickly becomes evident that sidestepping a challenge isn’t really her thing.

So she threw it at the end of her first tumbling pass, fueled by adrenaline, ambition and otherworldly skill. When the dizzying combination ended with her feet firmly on the floor — if barely in bounds — the jolt through the packed arena was palpable. The smile on her face unmistakable. And the competition — just like it has been for six years and counting whenever Biles is involved — was over.

The triple-double served as the exclamation point on her sixth national championship. Her two-day total of 118.500 was nearly five points clear of 16-year-old Sunisa Lee in second and more almost seven points ahead of third-place finisher Grace McCallum.


Yet Biles doesn’t pay too much attention to the margin or her scores for that matter. She’s been a fixture atop the podium for six years and counting. Attempting to find the boundaries of her immense talent is what drives her.


It’s why she got so angry after putting both hands down as she tried to land the triple-double on Friday. It’s why she never thought about ditching it on Sunday. And it’s why she sneaked a peek at her phone while rotating from floor to balance beam, typically a no-no during a meet. Well, at least for anyone not named Simone Biles.

“I wanted to see how it looked,” she said.

Here’s a word: historic.

“It’s like she hit a hole in one and we were all there,” USA Gymnastics high performance director Tom Forster said. “It’s a big deal and we all know it. No one in the world has done it before in the women and actually, she does it better than most of the men who have done it. She should be super excited about that.”


She was. When Biles finished off a two-hour showcase that highlighted how wide the gulf between herself and the rest of the world has become by drilling her dismount on uneven bars: she danced.

Well, sort of. Biles gave Landi a relieved high-five before sticking out her tongue and waving her arms as she ran to hug the rest of competitors in her rotation.

The anger of Friday night — when she openly seethed after shorting the triple-double and making a bit of a mess on bars — was gone.

“I was a lot happier today,” Biles said. “I feel I haven’t been as confident on bars this year as I was last year. To finally do a good routine like I can do it, I was really happy. I was very happy and the last event, so I was like, ‘Thank God we’re done.’”

For now anyway. Biles is two months away from a trip to the world championships — where her 20 medals are tied for the most by a female gymnast — and a year away from a return to the Olympics. She was a sensation in 2016, cementing her status as one of the best ever with two weeks of gymnastics that came as close to perfection as the sport allows.

A year to go before a return trip to the games, Biles is even better. And really, it’s not close.

“She’s a freaking beast,” said MyKayla Skinner, an alternate on the 2016 Olympic team who clinched a spot on the national team by finishing eighth. “Like, I don’t even understand. I always ask her, ‘Do you realize how good you are?’ And she’s like ‘Yeah, but I don’t know.’ It just comes so naturally, it’s amazing.”

In a sport that sometimes forces athletes to choose between skill and execution, Biles doesn’t have to. She not only puts together the most difficult routines in the world, she does them better than anyone else. Biles won floor, balance beam and vault and finished third on bars even with her “meh” set on Friday.

“She does stuff that I never thought people could do,” Lee said.

Lee and 2017 world champion Morgan Hurd were the only women in the field to place ahead of Biles on any event, finishing one-two on bars, solidifying their chances of joining Biles at world championships in Germany in October in the process.


Hurd rebounded from a rocky floor exercise on Friday that dropped her to eighth overall to zoom up to fourth despite admitting she “wanted to throw up a little” when the night began. She promised she would be better on Sunday and she was, despite a technical glitch before her floor when the music started before she took her starting position. She walked off the podium, exhaled and then went out and drilled her set.

“I think more than anything, tonight just really helped my confidence,” Hurd said.

Something every gymnast struggles with sometimes. Biles included. Yes, really. It speaks to her inner perfectionist that even after finishing the triple-double, she still knows it wasn’t quite her best.

“It wasn’t as good as in some of the trainings,” she said. “But I’m just happy that I landed it because after night one, my confidence got shot down. So I was really worried about it going into today and that was all I could worry about.”

Not anymore.

source: sports.inquirer.net

PSA: Female Olympians Wear Makeup for Self-Expression

Two commentators Mark Simone and Bo Dietl debated about the looks of female Olympians like Simone Biles and Simone Manuel instead of talking about their success and achievements. You totally missed the mark, Fox News.

Every second of that video made me cringe as I watched two men talk about women’s physical appearance and they even asked the male Olympians like Michael Phelps to do the same—look good when you accept that medal.

“The whole point of the Olympics, the whole reason for this training, for this work to get there, is product endorsements,” said Mark. It did not stop there, Bo added fuel to the flame by talking about zits on their faces and saying, “I like to see a person who wins that gold medal go up there and look beautiful.” As if their medals and record-breaking performance are not enough.

To clarify, female athletes who choose to wear makeup do it because they want to, because they are empowered and they feel much more confident—and there is nothing wrong with that. But if one chooses not to do it, do not give them flak.

The Fox News segment was based on the piece published on USA Today and I suggest you read that instead of listening to those two men.

[Nylon]

 Photo by Ben Stansall for AFP

source: preen.inquirer.net

French gymnast’s horrific leg break chills gymnastics arena

RIO DE JANEIRO — French gymnast Samir Ait Said landed awkwardly on a vault, and a sickening snap echoed throughout the arena. A split second later, he was clutching his contorted left leg, his tibia fractured and his Olympics over.

Said was trying to fly over the vault and complete two backflips in a pike at men’s qualifying Saturday. The injury highlighted the dangers of a sport that steps into the world’s spotlight every four years and led some to question if the current scoring system is making gymnasts push themselves too far.

Said was attempting his second vault when he crumpled. He used one hand to hold his leg just below the knee and put the other one to his head as he grimaced in pain in the moments just after the fall. Medical personnel rushed to help him, placing him on a stretcher and carrying him off the podium to loud applause from the crowd.

“It is catastrophic … our mental state is very bad but we each have a target and we have to carry on for ourselves,” teammate Cyril Tommasone said.

The International Gymnastics Federation moved away from the 10.0 scoring system a decade ago, favoring a new format that splits each gymnast’s score into two parts. The first score is based on the difficulty of skills a gymnast completes. The second score is based on how well they execute them.

Many gymnasts try to pack as many skills into their routine as they can to pile up points. German gymnast Fabian Hambuechen, a four-time Olympian and two-time medalist on high bar, wonders if the sport has become almost too dangerous, with gymnasts attempting skills they haven’t yet mastered, a stark contrast from the old system that put an emphasis on perfection instead of daring.

“It’s a pity that gymnastics developed like that,” Hambuechen said. “It’s always more, more difficulty, more risk, higher. Everyone wants new records and stuff so it’s getting dangerous. That’s what really is annoying. I don’t like the system anymore. So I hope that it will change after Rio again.”

He misses the days before the difficulty score was implemented and thinks returning to the old scale would make things safer for the athletes.

“I’m one of the guys who still loves the 10.0,” he said. “That was a simple system. It was like everyone had the chance to get the high score of 10.0 with different ways. Now everyone knows if you want to have a high “D” score you have to do these skills and these skills are sometimes too dangerous for some people.”

French team leader Corrine Moustard-Callon didn’t have many details on Said’s injury, but lamented the terrible way his Olympics ended after years of hard work.

“He made a technical mistake,” Moustard-Callon said. “He is in the hospital with a doctor now. We will give more news when we have it. We don’t know what happened, except that it was his tibia. We will do more exams to see if it is just the bone.”

Said’s injury wasn’t the only one that ended Olympic hopes. Germany’s Andreas Toba tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during the floor exercise.

“I cried like a little kid,” Toba said. “The injury on my knee is big, but the emotional injury is way bigger.”

Toba competed in the pommel horse after the injury, a gutsy move that impressed his teammates and the crowd.

“That was amazing,” Hambuechen said. “It’s an honor to have someone like him on the team.”

Many of the gymnasts who were competing in the same division were jarred by Said’s injury, but none were particularly surprised. While the dangers of contact sports like football are constantly talked about, people sometimes don’t think about the risks gymnasts take when propelling their bodies through the air.

“Everybody knows gymnastics is the hardest sport in the world,” American gymnast Danell Leyva said. “And if you don’t know it, you don’t know about gymnastics.”/rga

source: sports.inquirer.net