Biles overcomes errors, wins all-around

DOHA, Qatar — Simone Biles attempted to smile, but her eyes betrayed her. She was angry, paying little attention to the gold medal around her neck, the one that made history.

Yes, winning never gets old. It’s just not why she does this.

The challenge whenever the greatest gymnast of her and any other generation steps onto the floor isn’t to impress the judges so much as to meet her own impossibly high standards. The one that keeps nudging the 21- year-old to propel herself and her sport forward.

And for two hours Thursday, for the first time in a long time, the momentum slowed. At least in the eyes of Biles, who didn’t sound like someone who had become the first woman to win four world all-around titles, a feat she pulled off despite some uncharacteristic errors to beat Japan’s Mai Murakami and American teammate Morgan Hurd by more than 1.6 points.

It’s a sizable margin for nearly everyone else, but not for Biles. Battling a kidney stone she insists is manageable, she sat down her vault in the first rotation, came off the beam on her third and stepped out of bounds on floor exercise.

“It’s not the gymnast that I am, to go out there and kind of bomb a meet like this,” said Biles after posting an all-around score of 57.491. “Even though I won, I wish it were a little bit different.”

Only it wasn’t, a testament to the massive difficulty Biles packs into each event. What she’s doing on floor exercise is as hard as anything the men can come up with. The vault — the one that will carry her name when code of points is updated — is so tough no other woman even attempts it in competition.

Yet Biles doesn’t use the remarkably high values of her routines as an excuse when she doesn’t hit them.