Simone Biles seeks medal record in Tuesday's team final

Another day, another potential milestone for Simone Biles.

Already holding the record for most titles in the history of the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships with 14, the four-time Olympic champion will almost certainly become the event's most decorated woman in Tuesday’s team final.

Right now, she is tied with Russia's Svetlana Khorkina on 20 medals with only Vitaly Scherbo (23) and Kohei Uchimura (21) ahead of her.

“I never think about the records,” Biles said in August as she was on the brink of a record-tying sixth U.S. title. “I honestly don’t know that I’m breaking a record until somebody brings it up to me because I never keep track or keep scores.”

With the USA heavy favourites to claim a fifth consecutive overall title, Biles looks set to add to her list of achievements over the course of the fortnight in Stuttgart.

She has already had two skills named after her after performing them in qualification.

Meeting expectations

“I just try not to pay attention. I just try to do my work,” Biles said.

Her work usually works out. In fact, her first outing in Stuttgart was arguably one of the greatest performances in the sport's history, as she leads the all-around standings by more than two points and qualified to all four apparatus finals for the third time in her career.

But by her own admission, the best is yet to come.

"Overall, I don’t know. I still feel like I could do better," the four-time Olympic champion told reporters after qualifying. "But my goal going into tonight was to not be great, to do great, it was just to do well. I feel like I accomplished that."

She's been so uniformly consistent in her brilliance that it almost makes her otherworldly performances seem routine.

That consistency has resulted in medals in every world or Olympic final she’s competed in, except one at her very first global meet in 2013.

It’s also yielded records galore including most World Championship gold medals for a woman which she’s held since 2015.

Biles passed Scherbo's tally of 11 in Doha last year to go top overall having skipped the 2017 event.

More than medals

Last week, though, during a press conference in Stuttgart, Biles admitted that stamping her name in the gymnastics Code of Points meant more to her than any of the medals or records.

She did more than do them, rocking her triple-twisting, double back tumbling pass to the delight of the raucous crowd on hand at the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer-Halle. Her successful exection of the element made it officially the Biles II.

As expected, Biles made history in Stuttgart and it only took her 22 minutes.

Then in the final rotation, Biles again performed an original move for the first time at the Worlds or an Olympics – the double-double dismount off the balance beam. That gave the 22-year-old her fourth eponymous element.

Coming into Stuttgart, she already had one named element on floor, the double layout with a half twist, along with the vault she submitted in 2018 (a round-off onto the board, half twist onto the vault, front layout with two twists).

Now, with four elements bearing her name in the code of points she is – ironically – tied with Khorkina for the third most of any woman.

Olympic champions Nellie Kim (seven), and Oksana Chusovitina (five) are the only women with more.