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Simone Biles practices ahead of the 2024 U.S. Olympic team gymnastics trials.
AFP
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MINNEAPOLIS (AFP) — Simone Biles continued her march toward the Paris Olympics with a dynamic day one at the United States gymnastics trials that featured brilliance and a little reminder that she’s human, too.
The four-time Olympic gold medallist thrilled the Target Center crowd with her signature Yurchenko double pike vault, now also known as the Biles II.
She earned 15.975 points for the vault which no other woman has attempted in competition.
Biles topped the all-around standings after the first night of competition on 58.900 points, with the all-around winner after day two on Sunday guaranteed a trip to Paris, where gymnastics competition begins in just under a month.
The other four spots on the team will be decided by a selection committee, based on results at trials and in prior events with an eye toward maximizing the squad’s scoring potential in Paris.
Jordan Chiles, part of the US silver medal-winning team in Tokyo, was second with 56.400 points.
Tokyo all-around champion Suni Lee, eying a return trip to the Games after battling back from kidney disease, was in third on 56.025 points after a night when injuries to two Olympic contenders ratcheted up the stress for everyone.
Biles’s coach, Laurent Landi, said the injuries to Shilese Jones and Kayla DiCello at the start of the night affected everyone, Biles included.
“It’s always hard to see one of your teammates really getting hurt,” he said.
“You need to be in your own bubble. We just told them to calm down and just to think about themselves, one event at a time, one skill at a time.”