![]() The 24-year-old Texan, dubbed the “GOAT” and widely recognized as the best gymnast in the world, became the face of the American team at the Tokyo games. She placed third on bars in Tokyo, due in no small part to the attention she received after becoming the fifth straight American woman to win the Olympic title.For months, the hype surrounding the 2020 Summer Olympics has been building, and for most of it, the spotlight has been on Simone Biles. Lee missed the second half of her sophomore year with the Tigers while grappling with health issues but is eyeing a return to the Olympics not to defend her all-around title but to take another shot at gold on uneven bars, her signature event. Sunisa Lee, who won gold in the all-around final in Tokyo, will also be at the US Classic after spending two years competing at Auburn, where she helped spearhead a huge uptick in interest in collegiate gymnastics. She’s kept her various social media channels almost entirely gymnastics-free, instead using them to highlight snippets of her personal life.Īnd for the first time since rising to stardom as a teenager in 2013, Biles won’t have to shoulder the burden of being the standard bearer for the US program. She appears to be taking a more subdued approach with the Paris Games about a year away. Things could be different this time around, in more ways than one.īiles courted the spotlight during her run-up to Tokyo, becoming in many ways the face of the US Olympic movement. It took her all of two hours to show she remained the gold standard in her sport, setting the stage for another spectacular run that included two more world all-around championships in 20 and three more national titles. The US Classic is one of the marquee events on USA Gymnastics’ annual calendar and typically serves as a warm-up of sorts for the national championships, this year scheduled for late August in San Jose.īiles used the Classic as her comeback meet in 2018 following a two-year hiatus after her record medals haul in Rio de Janeiro. ![]() While the conversation around the subject is constantly evolving, Biles’ return to the sport she dominated for nearly a decade suggests an athlete who wants to go out on her own terms. ![]() The 26-year-old Biles has also become one of the most vocal advocates for athletes finding space to protect their mental health after her stand in Japan put the issue front and center. She headlined her post-Olympic tour in the fall of 2021 and married NFL player Jonathan Owens – now a defensive back for the Green Bay Packers – this spring. ![]() The last two years have been a whirlwind of sorts. She hinted at the Paris 2024 Olympics but only after taking a lengthy break. She served as a cheerleader as her American teammates won the team silver then sat out the all-around, vault and floor exercise finals she had qualified for while dealing with what is known as “the twisties” – a gymnastics term for when an athlete loses their spatial awareness when airborne.īiles returned for the balance beam final, where she won a bronze medal that tied Shannon Miller’s record for most Olympic medals by an American female gymnast. Biles has taken most of the last two years off following her eventful stay in Japan, where her decision to remove herself from multiple events to focus on her mental health shifted the focus from the games themselves to the overall wellness of the athletes. ![]()
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