Simone Biles has qualified for every single women'sgymnastics medal event at the TokyoOlympics .- She managed the incredible feat despite an uncharacteristically weak performance at qualifying.
- Despite errors on all but one apparatus, Biles finished first in the individual all-around.
Simone Biles has qualified for every single medal event at the Tokyo Olympics.
It's a stunning feat, made even more stunning in light of an Olympic rule that limits each country to just two athletes for each individual event final.
But if you were to ask the GOAT herself, she'd likely be the first to tell you that Sunday's showing left much to be desired.
"Obviously there are little things we need to work on," Biles said after the qualifying round, per People. "We'll go back and practice and work on that, just so we can do our best performance at team finals because that's what matters."
As was all but a foregone conclusion years in the making, Biles finished atop the field in the all-around. But she relied heavily on her astronomically high difficulty scores in nearly every apparatus to get herself there, as her execution scores took a hit thanks to her uncharacteristically sloppy performance in her Tokyo opener.
Biles started on the floor exercise, which is arguably her most dominant event of any given competition. But even with two eponymous skills built into her routine, the 24-year-old international icon struggled to reach her usual top marks.
During the penultimate tumbling pass of her performance on the floor, Biles stepped out of bounds and picked up a massive point deduction. And while Biles has been known to teeter out of bounds from time to time due to the immense power on many of her passes, Sunday's error was more jarring than usual; Biles flew clean off the mat.
The error resulted in a three-tenths point deduction and relegated Biles to second overall on the apparatus - a position she's rarely found herself in during her career.
She and her
Instead, Biles went with a Cheng - a half-twist onto the vaulting table and a straight-legged front flip with 1.5 twists off of it. She's pulled it off countless times throughout her illustrious career, but on Sunday, she once again put too much power into the skill and wound up stepping off the mat on the landing.
She wasn't impressed:
-PettyOkino (@PettyOkino) July 25, 2021
Her second vault, an Amanar, featured a roundoff back handspring onto the vault with 2.5 twists during a back layout. She completed it cleanly for a score of 15.4 - tied for the highest point value given to any vault performed during the qualifying round.
It was just good enough to finish first; she edged out American teammate Jade Carey for the top spot by less than two-hundredths of a point.
On the uneven bars - her next event and the one considered her weakest of the four - Biles worked through her routine without issue. She earned a 10th-best 14.566 on the apparatus, but with four Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) athletes finishing ahead of her, Biles saw the aforementioned "two-per" rule work to her advantage and enable her to squeak into the final in the eighth spot.
Biles rounded out the qualification round with the balance beam - the event that resulted in the lone bronze medal of her stunning breakout at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. This time around, her performance was nearly flawless- aside from yet another high-powered dismount that left her stumbling many feet backwards.
On the whole, Biles' outing was rather lackluster - relatively speaking, of course. But the embellishments wound up being unnecessary; she achieved everything she set out to without the glitz and wide margins her fans have grown used to.
Biles will return to the gym in two days for the team all-around final. She and Team USA were favored to win gold heading into the games, but Sunday's second-place finish behind ROC may have cast some doubt on that advantage.
Fans can tune in on NBC at 6:45 a.m. ET Tuesday to watch Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles, and Grace McCallum compete for