Biles wows fans with video of daring vault ahead of Olympics
LOS ANGELES: Simone Biles, the most decorated American gymnast with a whopping 30 Olympic and world championship medals, has excited fans with a foursecond video clip of a training vault no woman has performed in competition.
The 22-year-old reigning world and Olympic all-around champion showed off a Yurchenko double pike vault and landed in a pit of red foam-like bricks with the Twitter caption “2020?” and three sets of widened eyeballs.
The video had been viewed more than 2.3 million times as of Thursday afternoon.
It’s a hint that the world’s top gymnast might have something new to display for the Tokyo Olympics and for US Olympic qualifying in June.
The vault features a back handspring onto the vault, then two flips in the air with her legs straight. A key is gaining the height needed to land safely with under-rotation and botched landings opening up possible major injuries.
Biles would be favored for Olympic gold even without such an epic vault, what with her recent her of unmatched dominance at the top level.
She won all-around, team, vault, balance beam and floor exercise gold medals at last year’s World Championships in Stuttgart as well as the 2016 Rio Olympics.
Biles captured team, allaround, floor and vault titles at the 2018 worlds after taking team, beam, floor and all-around crowns at the 2014 and 2015 worlds plus all-around and floor titles at the 2013 worlds.