![]() ![]() Her celebrity dwarfs that of the other women gymnasts she’s competing alongside. One fellow member of Team USA shared a swooning TikTok when he saw her from afar. Those comments - the ones about the “weight of the world” on her shoulders - made headlines, too.īiles can’t escape attention even when she’s off the mat. She knew the mistake would make headlines, so she addressed the situation with candor online. At the qualifying event, she went out of bounds multiple times, docking her score (which was still the highest of the day, given the difficulty of her routine). And she’s doing it all without her family as they watch from half a world away.īiles is so near-perfect that even one missed step is newsworthy. These are also her first Games since former USA Gymnastics physician Larry Nassar was convicted of sexually abusing young gymnasts, including Biles and Raisman. She was expected to become the first woman to win back-to-back Olympic honors in half a century. It’s all about the 24-year-old, 4-foot-8 powerhouse with the bedazzled goat embroidered onto her leotards.īut Biles returned to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with something more to prove. Gone are the days of the Fierce Five, the nickname for the 2012 US Women’s Gymnastics stars that included Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman. She’s such an outsized talent that she’s transcended sport altogether and become the kind of cultural phenomenon that only male athletes usually got to be in a previous era.įor all the praise heaped on her, she’s generally seemed able to acknowledge it, owning her preternatural prowess without letting the expectations weigh her down. ![]() (Ever heard of the Yurchenko double pike? Not until Simone Biles, you didn’t, because she was the first to ever execute it.) Dozens of articles have said as much in the weeks leading up to her return to the Olympics. Here is an athlete with virtually no rival no one has ever done the kinds of moves she can. She executes moves so complex, so far from anything her competitors are capable of, that the gymnastics judging panel has been accused of dampening her scores so she doesn’t obliterate the competition. Biles is the greatest gymnast of all time watch any of her previous routines and this much is undeniable. ![]()
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