USA TODAY International Edition
Biles makes history, medals in all events
Give Simone Biles all the medals. Now. And, if we’re being honest, again in two years at the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.
Biles capped off the best meet of her career with yet another milestone Saturday, claiming a gold on floor exercise and a bronze on balance beam to become the first woman in 30 years to win a medal on all six events at the world gymnastics championships or Olympics. For those keeping track, she leaves worlds with four golds, including a record fourth all-around title.
Oh, and she’s only a year and a day removed from her return to the gym after taking a year off following the Rio Olympics. If this is what she can accomplish in a year, imagine what she’ll do with the two years before Tokyo.
“I’m proud of my performances here,” Biles said Saturday in Doha, Qatar. “I wish some of them would have been better, but I’m proud of the outcome.”
Biles holds the record for world titles by a gymnast, male or female, with her floor gold giving her 14. She tied Svetlana Khorkina’s record of 20 medals at these worlds and, barring injury, will pass the Russian next year in Germany.
Probably Vitaly Scherbo, too, who holds the overall mark with 23.
This isn’t a case of her running circles around inferior competition. Biles is just really that good.
Her teammates during the run-up to the Rio Olympics used to joke about the “Simone division,” saying finishing second to her was as good as winning. It’s even more true now.
Gymnastics is a sport that depends on muscle memory, and taking as much time off as Biles did would normally require a slow rebuild. Months of conditioning, followed by the gradual reconstructing of skills and routines.
Not for Biles. She regained her skills in a matter of weeks and quickly moved on to upping her gold medal game.
There is, of course, her new vault, which will soon be named after her. It’s a roundoff with a half-twist onto the vaulting table and then a front double full somersault off, and it’s so hard some of the top men can’t even do it. She also added difficulty to her floor routine.
And perhaps most impressively, she transformed herself on uneven bars.
Biles was never bad at bars, but she hated them and that discomfort often showed. New coach Laurent Landi is a bars savant, though, and he has turned Biles into one of the best bar workers in the world.
She has the silver medal to prove it, her first at worlds on uneven bars.
“Most definitely the bar medal,” she said when asked which of her medals at this worlds meant the most. “Just because I worked really hard.”
While Biles said she, Landi and his wife and co-coach, Cecile, will need to talk about what new tricks she’ll try and master next, it’s a good bet there will be something in store. After she takes care of that kidney stone that kept her in the emergency room until 1 a.m. the night before qualifying, of course.
The whole reason Biles came back was to test herself, and she won’t be content to maintain the status quo. Which means the team, all-around, vault and floor exercise golds in Tokyo are already spoken for. Maybe balance beam, too, now that Biles has a bronze medal to remind herself that she’s pretty good on it.
Despite a few wobbles Saturday, Biles stayed on the beam. That alone is an improvement from the all-around final, when she had to jump off after a forward somersault.
“To be completely honest, I’m really just happy I stayed on the beam,” she said. “Going into this world championships, I wasn’t as confident as I used to be on beam. So I think it’s a step forward, and hopefully here on out, it can only improve.”
Biles deserves to have all of the recognition.
All of the medals, too.