Medal count for Biles is alltime record
STUTTGART, Germany — Everyone counts Simone Biles’ medals except Simone Biles.
Winning her 24th and 25th world championship medals on Sunday — two more golds — put the American gymnast atop the alltime medal charts for the championships.
Biles won five gold medals this week. If she can repeat that at next year’s Olympics it would be a feat no female gymnast has managed at a single Games.
But for Biles, it’s not about the statistics.
“I can’t be more thrilled with the performance that I put out at this world championships,” she said. The medal record? “I’m not a number person.”
Aged 22, she’s a hero to younger gymnasts who grew up watching her routines.
“I’m second in the world after Simone Biles, and she’s obviously so amazing. And to be second is super crazy,” 16yearold U.S. gymnast Sunisa Lee said after taking silver behind Biles in Sunday’s floor exercise. “I don’t know how she’s been doing this for so long.”
Biles’ 24th medal came on the beam, breaking a tie for 23 with Belarusian gymnast Vitaly Scherbo.
Biles scored 15.066 after a nearflawless routine, opting for a simpler dismount than the doubledouble she performed earlier in the championships.
That dismount is a sore point for Biles, who introduced the doubledouble to competition this season. She feels the International Gymnastics Federation didn’t reward it with a high enough difficulty rating.
“It’s not worth the onetenth (extra difficulty point). I’m sorry, it’s just not,” she said.
When her score was announced, guaranteeing the medal record, Biles leaped up from her seat with a broad smile and punched the air.
“I was really excited. I thought it was going to be at least a 14.8, 14.9, but to see 15, I was like, ‘Well, that’s pretty crazy,’ so I was very proud,” she said.
China took silver and bronze with Liu Tingting scoring 14.433 and Li Shijia getting 14.3, respectively.
Biles won the floor exercise by a full point, scoring 15.133 despite a step out of bounds on one pass. She blew kisses to the audience after her routine. Her U.S. teammate Lee won silver, her third medal of the championships, while Angelina Melnikova took bronze for Russia.
Biles’ winning routine came after a long wait when Brazilian gymnast Flavia Saraiva requested an inquiry into her score, during which time Biles sat on the edge of the floor.
Her earlier gold medals came in the team event Tuesday, the individual allaround Thursday and the vault Saturday.
A fifth place on uneven bars Saturday ended Biles’ chances of winning a medal in all six events, which she did last year in her comeback world championships after a sabbatical in 2017.
The uneven bars are historically Biles’ weakest event, though she still won a world silver on it in 2018. Twotime world champion Nina Derwael of Belgium is the strongest contender to stop a goldmedal sweep by Biles and the U.S. women’s team at the Olympics.
Biles hasn’t confirmed whether she’ll continue to compete after next year’s Olympics, so this week may have been her last at the world championships. Blowing kisses to the crowd wasn’t meant as a goodbye to the competition, she said.
“It’s just a good floor routine, farewell to just the end of this world championship chapter here in Stuttgart,” she said.
Of Biles’ 25 career world medals, 19 are gold, against 12 of 23 for Scherbo.
Earlier, Russia’s Nikita Nagornyy won the men’s vault for his third gold medal of the championships. He’s the first European man to win the vault since 2010.
Nagornyy scored an average 14.966 from his two vaults, leaving his friend and Russian teammate Artur Dalaloyan in second place. The bronze went to Ukraine’s Igor Radivilov.
Romania’s Marian Dragulescu, a fourtime world champion who is 38, secured qualification for his fifth Olympics by placing fourth.
Britain won its second gold of the championships as Joe Fraser scored 15 points on parallel bars. Max Whitlock won Britain’s first gold medal Saturday on pommel horse.
Arthur Mariano won gold for Brazil on the high bar, scoring 14.9.