San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Biles ends remarkable worlds with 4th gold
DOHA, Qatar — Simone Biles returned to training last November wondering whether she could ever return to the form that made her an Olympic champion.
She doesn’t wonder anymore. Neither does anyone else.
The American star capped a remarkable 2018 world gymnastics championships by claiming gold on floor exercise and bronze on balance beam during event finals Saturday, giving her six medals for the meet and 20 overall in the world championships, tying her with Russia’s Svetlana Khorkina for most by a female gymnast.
“I think there’s a lot to be proud of, but I’m most proud of that I’m here, I made all the event finals, medaled in all of the events, and I survived,” Biles said.
Biles spent the night before qualifying in the hospital dealing with pain from a kidney stone. The stone was too big to pass and she couldn’t take prescription pain medication because of doping regulations, forcing her to deal with it.
Biles did more than deal with it. She dominated. Like always.
The 21-year-old will head home to Houston with gold medals from the team final, the all-around final, floor and vault as well as a silver on uneven bars and a bronze on beam. She became the first woman to earn a medal in all four events since Yelena Shushunova did it for the Soviet Union in 1987.
Biles believes it’s just the beginning. She’ll visit with doctors to treat the kidney stone, go on a short vacation and then point toward 2019.
“Hopefully, I feel more confident next year going into all of the events,” she said. “We’ll see about upgrades. I’m not sure. We’ll see.”
Biles finished a busy 10 days by drilling her floor routine, which includes intricate tumbling runs that are as difficult as anything done by the men. Though she stepped out of bounds on her third pass, her score of 14.933 was a full point better than that of teammate Morgan Hurd, who earned her third medal of the meet by finishing with silver. Japan’s Mai Murakami took third.
Biles wasn’t quite as crisp on the balance beam, an event that she’s struggled with recently. She wobbled during qualifying and fell off during the allaround finals. Though she managed to stay on during the event finals, she found herself off balance on multiple occasions. Her score of 13.6 held up for bronze behind China’s Liu Tingting and Canada’s Ana Padurariu.
Biles took herself to task after the all-around, unhappy with a series of uncharacteristic mistakes. She vowed to redeem herself in the event finals and responded by reaching the podium in each event.
“I’m really happy to be done,” Biles said. “Proud of my performances here. I wish some of them would have been better, but I’m really proud of the outcome.”
Hurd followed her breakthrough performance at the 2017 world championships — when she became an unlikely champion — by winning a team gold, bronze in the all-around and a silver in the floor exercise.
On the men’s side, five-time U.S. champion and two-time Olympian Sam Mikulak picked up the first world championship medal of his career when he finished third in the high bar final behind Epke Zonderland of the Netherlands and Japan’s Kohei Uchimura, who boosted his career worlds medals total to 21.