Brilliant Biles is dominant again: can anyone keep her from all-around title?
aWhile one teammate, Joscelyn Roberson, was struck by a shock injury during the warm-up and others strained under the pressure of international competition, Simone Biles’ first final on Wednesday night provided a fitting demonstration of the more underrated qualities she already has. so successful for so long.
Biles is certainly the best gymnast in the world, but the 26-year-old’s success is also defined by the mental strength that has allowed her to win so consistently and under so much pressure. When her teammates needed her, she was there. Biles’ total in the team finals was 58.732, 1.633 points higher than the next best performer, and she closed the night with one of her best floor routines ever.
On Friday, Biles will attempt to win the world all-round title for the sixth time, a competition in which she remains undefeated since her debut in Antwerp ten years ago. Given her scores in the qualifying round and the team final – by far the two highest international all-around scores of this Olympic quad – and the strong mental state she appears to be in, Biles is the prohibitive favorite to maintain her dominance.
The question is whether anyone will get close enough to at least put pressure on her. The defending champion, Rebeca Andrade, is clearly the most capable. Andrade’s trajectory remains one of the most satisfying in the sport’s recent history. Despite the immense talent she clearly possessed as a junior, her potential was continually hampered by injuries as she tore her anterior cruciate ligaments (ACL) on three separate occasions between 2015 and 2019.
In 2019, there were major doubts about whether Andrade would ever be healthy enough to thrive. Instead, she returned in 2021 just in time to enjoy an incredible breakthrough at the Tokyo Olympics, winning gold on vault and silver in the all-around, which catapulted her to greater success. Last year she won the world all-round title and on Wednesday she led Brazil to a historic silver team medal. During Biles’ absence since Tokyo, she has been the gymnast from this period.
If Biles has taken women’s gymnastics to impossible heights that few could have ever imagined, Andrade is the type of gymnast many fans dreamed of. She combines her great strength, amplitude, form, technique and grace in all four devices with boundless charisma. If the 24-year-old performs at her very best on Thursday, Andrade is capable of scoring around 58, a huge score, but one that would still rely on mistakes from Biles to be competitive.
This weekend, however, the second-highest qualifier was Shilese Jones, Biles’ teammate, who at age 21 has gradually emerged as an all-around top prospect and is one of several medal contenders. If she can control her extremely difficult Cheng jump, Britain’s Jessica Gadirova will also be in contention for a medal, as will Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos after leading France to a team bronze medal.
During the US world selection camp last month, Jones came so close to beating Biles in a bizarre encounter. After a nervous Biles made numerous mistakes, Jones switched to her favorite apparatus, the uneven bars, in the final rotation and needed only an average routine to win. Instead, Jones made a huge, bizarre mistake by brushing her feet on the ground, costing her a full penalty and giving Biles the chance to get the win.
As in Tokyo, the event underscored that Biles is human and even she is capable of missteps, even if they are highly unlikely. But it also showed how difficult it is physically and mentally to surpass her, even at her worst. If Biles performs well, she will win. If she feels the pressure, her rivals will likely still have to perform out of their skin to keep up.