Simone Biles is back and she is a force to be reckoned with.
You would have to have spent the last four to five years living under a rock if you do not know who Simone Biles is. Does the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro ring any bells?
Yup, that Simone Biles – the gold-medal winning member of the final five, the world’s most awarded female gymnast, and she is only 21 years old. Did I mention that Simone took two years off from competing?
Simone had a great deal of success at the 2016 Summer Olympics. She took home a medal for every event she was in. She earned the gold medal for Team, All-Around, Vault, Floor Exercise, and earned a bronze medal for Balance Beam.
After all of that hard work and months (honestly, years) of training, Simone understandably took time off from the sport. She spent all of 2017 enjoying her youth and surrounding herself with her loved ones.
It wasn’t until early 2018 that she began training again and at the end of July, Simone made her return to gymnastics at the U.S. Classic and swept the competition.
Simone appeared at her second competition in the span of a month recently and once again proved she is the undeniable “Champ.” Simone dominated the competition at the National Championships.
While competition at the National Championships, Simone placed first in every single event she participated in. She is the first woman to do this since Dominique Dawes in 1994.
She won the All-Around title after coming in a full 6.55 points ahead of the second place finisher, Morgan Hurd. Simone also took home the gold for Vault, Uneven Bars, Balance Beam, and Floor Exercise. Her five wins also set the record for most national titles!
Not only did Simone show off her incredible skill, she did it while supporting her fellow victims of abuse. Over the last year, USA Gymnastics was rocked by the scandal of Larry Nassar’s abuse.
Nassar is the disgraced former USA Gymnastics national team doctor and osteopathic physician at Michigan State University. He was accused by over 235 athletes of sexual abuse over the course of his lengthy career. In January 2018, he was sentenced to 40 to 125 years in prison.
Simone wore a teal mint leotard as a way to show to support to the fellow victims, as she too came forward and claimed to be one of the athletes that had been abused by Nassar. Teal is the color of the Sexual Assault Awareness ribbon and was worn at NCAA meets in the winter and spring.
When speaking with NBC about the National Championships, Simone opened up about her nerves. Simone said:
“I knew I was capable of [scoring this well], but I kind of thought I was going to be a nervous wreck and maybe fall apart. Going into these events, I know I kept telling my family like I don’t know if I’m going to be able to calm myself down the way I did before and handle the nerves, but so far, so good.”
At 21 years old, Simone is the first non-teen to win the U.S. women’s all-around since 1971.
You can watch Simone’s floor exercise routine in the video below:
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