Super Simone! Biles soars to Olympic all-around title

“I took, like, a little hop on my step”.

What Biles and Ledecky share is the same plan for getting farther ahead of the opposition when triumph already is a foregone conclusion. She was expected to lead the U.S.in the team competition, and to win gold in multiple stand-alone events, and to become a household name and the face of a nation. Perhaps by beginning the conversation with talk about the best in history. After winning her second straight gold medal, Harrison announced her retirement and may well be soon battling former judo bronze medalist Ronda Rousey in the UFC.

“I don’t think she’s even reacting to it”, said Aimee Boorman, the only coach Biles has ever had.

Simone Biles can win three more gold medals. When she’s in Belize with her family, she says, “we fish for snapper, grouper, and, yeah, some other ones, but I can’t think”. To me, I’m just the same Simone.

“I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps”, Biles said after the event.

It’s an important distinction for a young woman who is widely considered the best gymnast in the world.

Mustafina, pulled out 15.666 on the uneven bars on which she is reigning Olympic champion, to lead 0.034 at the half-way point as Biles hit 14.966 on her weakest apparatus.

“It’s very special to finally be on the podium”.

Some of her fellow competitors believe thats exactly where the 4-foot-8 dynamo is heading.

“No one goes into this thinking they can beat Simone”, Raisman said. “But the fact that she has dual citizenship, I don’t see why we can not celebrate her second country also”.

19-year-old American gymnast, Simone Biles has won the women’s all round olympic gold.

For American gymnast Aly Raisman, a silver medal in Thursday’s all-around event was a moment of redemption after the heartbreak of 2012 when she was on the wrong side of a tiebreak and bumped from the podium. That loss is what motivated her to compete in this year’s 2016 Rio Olympics. Earlier this year, Raisman said that with Biles around, coming second is basically like winning the meet, and in Rio de Janeiro the biggest battle was for the silver medal. This is the second bronze Olympic medal in a row for the Russian gymnast.

Comaneci, the 1976 Montreal gold medallist and first to earn a ideal 10.0 score, was like Biles coached by Romanian Martha Karolyi, who defected to the United States in 1981.

What gets Simone Biles started? Those are the culminations of our career.”. After a 56-minute wait between apparatuses, the Texan climbed the carpeted stairs to the competition podium and delivered a routine of immaculate quality punctuated by her signature – a double somersault with her body fully extended followed by a half-turn at the end – a manoeuvre so hard it has been named after her. Raisman was one of two holdovers from the 2012 team (Gabby Douglas, who didn’t qualify for the all-around competition since only two per country can, is the other), and had been pursuing the one thing missing from an otherwise illustrious resume: an all-around medal at an Olympics or World Championships. Biles led the US team to a similarly large margin when the Final Five won gold Tuesday.

“I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps”, Biles said. “It was just kind of a train wreck.”.

Over four decades of covering sports, I do not believe that I’ve ever uttered that word more often than this week here at the gymnastics venue.

“It was just incredible to be in Brazil and have the crowd give us a standing ovation”. “Shes certainly proven herself over the past three years that shes the greatest. “And you have to be fearless”, Boorman said as she matter-of-factly made the case.

On Day 6 in Rio, it was good to be an American athlete named “Simone”. “I just stay out of it. “Now it just happens to be me”.

“She’s been totally dedicated”, the coach said.