{"id":37224,"date":"2023-08-28T05:06:10","date_gmt":"2023-08-28T05:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=37224"},"modified":"2023-08-28T05:06:12","modified_gmt":"2023-08-28T05:06:12","slug":"gymnastics-simone-biles-wins-her-8th-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2023\/08\/28\/gymnastics-simone-biles-wins-her-8th-title\/","title":{"rendered":"Gymnastics: Simone Biles wins her 8th Title"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Simone Biles is not going to explain herself. Part of this is by design. Part of this is because she simply can\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

When the gymnastics star is at her best, as she was on Sunday night while winning her record eighth U.S. championship, she feels like she\u2019s in a \u201cfever dream.\u201d It\u2019s not autopilot exactly. It\u2019s more of a vibe. A flow.\u00a0
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s in those moments that the doubts that still plague her almost daily even now, a decade into a run of unprecedented excellence, fade away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is no thinking. No overanalyzing. No \u201c twisties<\/strong>.\u201d All of it recedes into the background. Her coach Laurent Landi calls it a skill. Biles, even at 26, won\u2019t go that far. Maybe because she simply doesn\u2019t want to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She spent a long time, far too long, getting caught up in her head. She\u2019s intent on not doing it this around. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So yeah, she was smiling midway through a floor routine that made almost every other competitor on the floor stop what they were doing to watch and drew a standing ovation from a portion of the sellout SAP Center crowd. No, she can\u2019t explain why. When her coaches told her she\u2019d nailed every tumbling pass, she was clueless.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt just doesn\u2019t feel real for some reason,\u201d Biles said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is. Remarkably. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten years ago she was a teenage prodigy who doesn\u2019t remember much from her ascension<\/strong> to the top of her sport. She was always fixated on the next thing. World championships. Team camps. The Olympics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now she\u2019s a 26-year-old newlywed determined to enjoy this. For real. Six months ago she wasn\u2019t sure she was all in. Three weeks ago she returned to competition in Chicago feeling as if she was going to \u201cthrow up\u201d every time she saluted the judges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The woman who posted a two-day all-around total of 118.40 this weekend in northern California \u2014 four points clear of runner-up Shilese Jones and well ahead of Florida junior Leanne Wong<\/strong> in third place \u2014 is not ready to hit fast forward. She won. She\u2019s letting herself be happy this time. That didn\u2019t always happen before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe really try to celebrate our success individually and as a team just so that in a couple of years you can remember this,\u201d she said. \u201cBecause I really don\u2019t remember a lot from the past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She knows that gymnastics won\u2019t last \u201cforever\u201d even if, for her in a way it has.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Peaks aren\u2019t supposed to last this long. Most elite gymnasts at 26 \u2014 at least the ones who haven\u2019t retired \u2014 are simply hoping to hold on to what they have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The athlete who became the oldest woman to win a national title since USA Gymnastics began organizing the event in 1963 is not interested in that. Landi called Biles\u2019floor routine in the finals the best he\u2019d ever seen her do. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s maturity,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biles\u2019 eight crowns moved her past Alfred Jochim, who won seven between 1925-33 when the Amateur Athletics Union ran the championships and the men\u2019s competition included rope climbing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, really.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sport has come a long way over the last century. No one has spent more time at the far end of the Bell curve than Biles, whose singular talents continue to push boundaries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s training smarter these days, her only real acquiescence to the miles she\u2019s put on it for the last 20 years. While she remains one of the most visible active athletes in the Olympic movement, she\u2019s making it a point not to let the world in on every single little thing as she eyes a trip to Paris next summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biles joked it\u2019s because people are \u201cnosy.\u201d The reality is, she\u2019d just like a little privacy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI like to keep (my goals) personal, just so that I know what I\u2019m aiming for,\u201d Biles said. \u201cI think it\u2019s better that way. I\u2019m trying to move a little bit differently this year than I have in the past. I think it\u2019s working so far, so I\u2019m going to keep it secretive.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There appears to be more balance in her life, leaning into the \u201cit\u2019s just gymnastics\u201d mantra that helped fuel her rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Age hasn\u2019t caught up to her yet, though she played it relatively safe \u2014 by her standards \u2014 on Sunday. She tweaked her right ankle while drilling her electric Yurchenko double pike vault<\/strong> on Friday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 14.850 she received for her Cheng vault was still the highest of the night on the event. So was the 14.8 she earned on beam. That 15.400 on floor, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next stop is Antwerp in late September, where Biles will try to add to the 25 world championship medals \u2014 18 of them gold \u2014 she\u2019s captured so far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jones figures to be on the plane too. The 21-year-old is a marvel on bars, where she thrives despite being tall (5-foot-6ish) for someone who opts to do this for a living. The crowd erupted when she nailed her dismount, her 15.000 score was tops in the meet on the event and put 10 months filled with injuries that have slowed her training firmly behind her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who joins Jones and Biles at worlds remains very much up in the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reigning Olympic champion Sunisa Lee, who has spent most of the year battling a kidney issue her doctors are still trying to get a handle on, could have a chance as a specialist. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wong, one of several athletes trying to compete at the NCAA and elite levels at the same time, put together two stellar nights that included an elegant bars set and a floor exercise that makes up for in precision what it lacks in power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles, teammates of Biles\u2019 at the 2020 Olympics, who have also spent the last two years splitting time between college and elite, weren\u2019t quite as sharp. Chiles fell off both the bars and beam. Carey finished in the top 10 on just one event \u2014 vault \u2014 where the Americans figure to be loaded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biles will lead the charge. She joked she asks herself every day why she\u2019s out there. The answer is simple. She feels like she owes it to herself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI still feel like I\u2019m capable of doing it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It certainly looks that way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Simone Biles is not going to explain herself. Part of this is by design. Part of this is because she simply can\u2019t. When the gymnastics star is at her best, as she was on Sunday night while winning her record eighth U.S. championship, she feels like she\u2019s in a \u201cfever dream.\u201d It\u2019s not autopilot exactly. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":37227,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[80,3295],"tags":[9951,10762,7067,2848,12758,8924,854,8908,9171,12326,5257,12310,746,5272,5321,6569,5918,11428,11525,5139,6654,7519,3874,7550,12309,12287,11385,10222,1707,11973,1253,11880,9446,6830,10614,6687,733,9030,7333,736,7231,10943,12790,5273,36,594],"class_list":["post-37224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","category-world-sport","tag-age","tag-athletics","tag-biles","tag-california","tag-captured","tag-chance","tag-chicago","tag-coach","tag-crowd","tag-decade","tag-doctors","tag-exercise","tag-feel","tag-fever","tag-florida","tag-fuel","tag-gold","tag-gymnastics","tag-injuries","tag-jones","tag-jordan","tag-judges","tag-lead","tag-marvel","tag-men","tag-movement","tag-olympic","tag-olympic-champion","tag-olympics","tag-one","tag-paris","tag-pike","tag-plague","tag-plane","tag-privacy","tag-runner","tag-simone-biles","tag-success","tag-summer","tag-u-s-gymnastics-championships","tag-union","tag-watch","tag-weekend","tag-woman","tag-world","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37224"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37228,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37224\/revisions\/37228"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}