Congratulations: 27 years old USA Simone Biles is the most decorated gymnast in history, winning a total of 37 Olympic and World Championship medals, including… Details
Simone Biles won a record-extending ninth U.S. all-around title, plus won every individual event title at nationals for the second time in her career.
Biles took a dominant next step to what would be her third Olympics in Paris.
She won the all-around at the Xfinity U.S. Championships by 5.9 points over Skye Blakely, combining scores from Friday and Sunday in Fort Worth, Texas. The margin is greater than what separated second place from 10th place.
“I couldn’t be more proud of how I’m doing this time in the year and just gaining that confidence over and over, getting myself back in front of a crowd and just doing what I do in practice,” Biles said.
It’s the third-largest margin of victory since the perfect 10 scoring system was replaced in 2006.
Biles won by a record 6.55 points in 2018, when she also became the first woman to sweep all five golds at one nationals since Dominique Dawes in 1994.
Biles’ only major error among eight events between Friday and Sunday was on a vault on Sunday.
She over-rotated a double back-flipping vault that’s named after her and fell backward. She smiled as she walked off, then hit her next vault.
“I’m kind of a veteran; it’s not my first time out there,” she said. “I’m a little bit older, so I know exactly how to kind of reboot and recollect myself to move onto the next event even if I feel like something wasn’t how I wanted it to go.”
The U.S. Championships marked the last major competition before the Olympic Trials, which are June 27-30 in Minneapolis.
The trials all-around winner makes the team for the Paris Games. A three-person selection committee picks the other four team members after trials, taking into account results dating back to last fall’s world championships.
