Biles wins fourth all-around title at worlds

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 exactly sound like someone who had just become the first woman to win four world all-around championships, a feat she pulled off despite a handful of 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 that 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.”

Playing it safe simply isn’t her style. While her right foot did slip into the red out of bounds during her first tumbling pass, it hardly mattered. Her score of 15.000 was more than enough to rocket past Murakami and Hurd, the 2017 world champion.