• BILES GOES FOR MORE.
Simone Biles: A perfect start and a chance to add three more gold medals to her gymnastics legacy
RIO DE JANEIRO — Simone Biles has established herself as the most dominant performer in the history of women’s gymnastics.
This week, she could become among the most bejeweled as well. With gold medals for women’s team and all-around packed, Biles, of Spring, on Sunday will begin three days of event finals — Sunday on vault, Monday on balance beam, Tuesday on floor — and could become the first woman to win five gold medals on existing events in the same Olympics.
With her grips packed away for uneven bars, the only event in which she did not qualify for event finals, Biles 19, will not have an opportunity to join the Russian champion Larissa Latynina (three golds, two silvers and a bronze in 1960, and two medals of each type in 1964) in medaling in every event. Challenges awaiting
But Biles would surpass Latynina’s four golds in 1956 if she sweeps the three event finals. Vera Caslavska of Czechoslovakia won four golds in 1968 to go with two silvers, and Agnes Keleti of Hungary won four golds (three on existing events) and two silvers in 1956. Nadia Comaneci of Romania won five medals, with three golds, in 1976.
But to join that group, Biles has things to do, beginning with vault.
For one thing, lurking at the edge of possibility is that she keeps her feet straight, keeps her body aligned properly, sticks her dismount without a momentum hop and receives a 10.0 execution score for her twisting, blind-landing Amanar vault, one of two she will perform Sunday.
Vault is a strength, though, a win could be elusive. Biles has never won a gold medal at the world championships in vault, and if Hong Un-Jong, the 2008 Olympic vault gold medalist, attempts and completes a triple-twisting vault that includes a half-twist more than Biles’ more difficult of two vaults, the difference in difficulty score could give the North Korean the gold.
A two-time world balance beam champion, Biles has had a series of balance checks with one fall at the U.S. Olympic Trials during recent competitions. She might need her best performance on that apparatus this season to beat teammate Lauren Hernandez for the gold.
Biles has won each of the last three world titles on floor exercise, and floor on Tuesday will be a fitting valedictory. 2012 Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman will be on the floor as well, but it’s hard to see anyone beating Biles on what is arguably her best event.
And with that, Biles and her coach, Aimee Boorman, will go their separate ways, at least for now — Biles to a national USA Gymnastics tour and then, perhaps, to college at UCLA; Boorman to her family in Houston and her job at the Biles family’s World Gymnastics Centre on the Grand Parkway. From here until the end, it’s a series of lasts — Saturday’s final day of practice, followed by one last turn on the three events at which Biles has excelled the last four years.
“It’s going to be different,” Boorman said late last week. “We’ve had that relationship for so long, and it’s like in four days, that’s over. That part of life is over. “I’m going to cry.” There’s a chance Biles could continue competing after a year’s break or so, although that’s unlikely. Still, the tale of Simone and Aimee is one to remember.
“She’s like a second mom to me,” Biles said. “I’ve been with her since I was 7, and we’ve done this entire journey together. It’s cool that we can start and end the same way.”
Boorman will continue coaching the elite program at World Champions Centre, and just as she once consulted top coaches about how to mentor Biles, she no doubt will become a mentor to other coaches.
As she does so, she said she will keep in mind a hard lesson she learned from a former coach during her days as a young gymnast in suburban Chicago. Boorman learns lesson
“I had one coach in particular when I was younger that really made me figure out what kind of coach I did not want to be,” Boorman said. “That was the biggest life lesson I learned from him.
“There was just a lot of favoritism. I was a really hard worker, really dedicated, really passionate, and he just wouldn’t give me the time of day because somebody was more talented or cuter or wittier.
“And so I wanted to be sure that I treated kids fairly across the board and that it didn’t have anything to do with talent. It had to do with work ethic and personality and what you were willing to put into it.”
As her Olympics and, potentially, her elite career comes to an end, Biles, too, can start considering legacies. She will never acknowledge her historic greatness but has never denied her deep love for the sport.
“You have a sense of pride in the way you carried yourself,” she said. “Everything I’ve done to this point has paid off, and it was worth it. I have no regrets.”
Biles said she would like to be remembered “as one who never gave up and put in a 100 percent for everything I did. Not only did I go out and have fun representing my country, I really enjoyed doing what I do.”