Simone Biles Maintains Gold Standard

By Nancy Armour

NO MATTER HOW MANY superlatives are used to describe Simone Biles and her greatness, it's not enough.

Not even close.

Competing in her first meet since the 2019 world championships – that's 587 days, for those counting – Biles became the first woman ever

to complete a Yurchenko double pike vault.

When it's officially recognized by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG), likely before the Tokyo Olympics, it will be the fifth skill named for Biles.

She has another vault named for her, as well as two skills on floor exercise and one on balance beam.

Oh, Biles won the U.S. Classic, too. Her score of 58.4 was more than a point higher than teammate Jordan Chiles, even with a fall on uneven bars, her final event. "She deserves every last bit of the whole thing," Chiles said.

Biles is already one of the world's most famous and compelling athletes, a four-time Olympic gold medalist who has no peers in her sport -- now or ever. With Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt watching from their couches, she will be the face of the upcoming Tokyo Olympics.

Yet it somehow feels as if Biles doesn't get the credit she deserves. And I'm not just talking about the fuddy duddies at the FIG who are poised to undervalue yet another of her groundbreaking skills.

What Biles is doing is incredibly difficult. Like, physicists-could-make-case-studies-of-what-shedoes difficult. But because she makes things look effortless, because she plays with skills for months, even years before letting the public get a glimpse of them, it is easy to underestimate just how transcendent she is.

Take the Yurchenko double pike. She does a roundoff onto the takeoff board, a back handspring onto the vault table and then a double somersault in a piked position.

Unlike other Yurchenko vaults, where the somersault is done in a laid out position, there is no bailout on the double pike. Don't get enough height, or place a hand wrong on the vault table, and she could very well land on her neck.

Yet Biles was practically flawless. Her block -- which takes the energy from her run and powers her into the air -- is so solid that she soars at least 6 feet high above the table, a stunning physical feat.

In fact, Biles got so much power on the vault that she had to take a couple of steps back to control her landing.

But her vault was given a start value of 6.6. While that's the highest difficulty score for a women's vault, it's still undervalued. Just as her doubletwisting, double somersault on balance beam was undervalued. "They’re both too low," Biles said afterward, her exasperation clear.

National team coordinator Tom Forster agreed.

Simone Biles performs her balance beam routine during the U.S. Classic gymnastics competition in Indianapolis, May 22, 2021