Four-time Olympic gold medallist Simone Biles is headed to the Paris Games with a resounding all-around victory at the US gymnastics trials on Sunday.
Biles capped her trials with another electrifying floor routine, her high-flying tumbling bringing the crowd to its feet.
She piled up 117.225 over two days of competition to earn an automatic berth on the five-strong team for Paris.
Three years after a bout of the disorienting “twisties” cut short Biles’s Tokyo Games campaign, the gymnast considered the best of all time will return to the Olympic stage looking stronger than ever.
“I knew I wasn’t done after the performances in Tokyo,” Biles said. “I knew I’d be back.”
Since returning to competition last August, she has captured world championships all-around gold and three weeks ago she grabbed her ninth national all-around title.
Biles launched her night with a soaring version of her Yurchenko double pike vault, and even though she skittered backwards a few steps on landing she scored 15.50 points for a vault so difficult that no other woman has attempted it in competition.
After a sub-par balance beam performance on day one left her clearly furious, Biles was rolling through an impressive routine when she lost her balance and fell off the beam — still scoring an impressive 13.900.
Suni Lee, the Tokyo Olympics all-around gold medalist who is back as she manages not just one but two career-threatening kidney diseases, finished second overall with 111.675 points and was named to the team — which in fact turned out to be the top-five all-around finishers.
Also Paris-bound are Jordan Chiles, part of the silver medal-winning US team in Tokyo who was third, Tokyo floor gold medallist Jade Carey who was fourth and 16-year-old Hezly Rivera — who was buoyed by a strong showing on balance beam and capped her night with a solid vault.
It was a triumphant and emotional night for Lee in front of ecstatic fans in her home state of Minnesota.
“I was reminded of my goals every day and constantly surrounded by people who never let me give up,” Lee said, breaking down in tears as she recalled that a year ago she didn’t think a return to the Games would be possible.”
Chiles said she was doing it for “the two I lost last year, my grandpa and my aunt.
“They always believed in me and that’s what made me continue to push my dream, push to another olympics which is crazy to say,” she said.
All eyes in Paris, however, will be on Biles, who heads to France an overwhelming favorite to add to the four golds she won in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
“I love these girls, and I’m going to take care of them in Paris,” Biles said.
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