Simone Biles clinched a historic ninth all-around title at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships in Fort Worth, Texas, securing her spot in the U.S. Olympic trials ahead of the Paris Games. The 37-time world and Olympic medalist also took home national titles on all four apparatuses, NBC News reports.
Biles and Skye Blakely, the top two finishers, automatically qualified for the Olympic trials set for June 27-30 in Minneapolis. These trials will determine the five gymnasts representing the U.S. at the Paris Olympics this summer.
Biles kicked off her night on the balance beam, delivering a nearly flawless routine that earned her an impressive score of 14.800. Despite a minor setback of going out of bounds on her signature triple-twisting double backflip during the floor exercise, she posted a 15.100.
On the Yurchenko double pike, or Biles II, which bears her name in the code, she scored 15.000 despite falling on the vault due to its high difficulty level. She secured her ninth all-around title with a 14.400 on the uneven bars.
Biles shared that after having battled the “twisties,” a condition that impairs perception and vision, for most of the Tokyo Olympics in 2020, she struggled to “trust her gymnastics again” on her comeback journey.
“It took a lot mentally and physically to just trust my gymnastics again and most importantly trust myself,” Biles said at a news conference after Sunday’s competition. “I think that was the hardest part after Tokyo is I didn’t trust myself to do gymnastics.”
Looking back on her first Olympic experience in Rio de Janeiro, Biles said there was something good about “going in blind” in 2016.”Now, having gone to two Olympics, each one gets a little bit more stressful because I know exactly what to expect,” she said. “I know exactly what I expect from myself.”
If the 27-year-old superstar gymnast is named to the U.S. Olympic team in Paris, she will become the first American woman since Dominique Dawes to have made three Olympic teams.