Simone Biles shocks fans with new balance beam dismount
The four-time Olympic champion doesn't appear to have missed a step despite seven week lay off
Artistic Gymnastics
So much for easing back into it.
Despite seven weeks away from the gym, four-time Olympic gymnastics gold medallist Simone Biles is reminding everyone just how gifted she is.
The five-time World all-around champion resumed training just four weeks go, and on Tuesday posted training footage of another one of her never-before-seen elements: a triple-twisting, double back off the balance beam.
"This week, they're starting getting their skills back and having a little bit more fun at the gym," Cecile Landi, who along with husband Laurent, coaches Biles told Olympic Channel two weeks ago.
And, then some, it appears.
It's the first footage Biles has treated fans to since postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games to 2021, and while there was initially speculation about future of the gymnast considered by most to be the greatest of all time, Biles has made clear she wants to end on her own terms.
“I feel that I didn't come this far to just give up,” Biles said in an interview with BBC Sport in April, “and I want to be the one who makes the decision if I'm done with the sport or not."
Fans aren't likely to see the triple-double balance beam dismount featured in Biles' Instagram and Twitter posts in competition, however.
At last October's World Artistic Gymnastics Champions in Stuttgart, Germany, the 25-time world medallist performed a similar element off the balance beam with one fewer twist. The sport's international governing body declared the element too dangerous and gave it a lower than expected difficulty rating.
“They keep asking us to do more difficulty and to give more artistry, give more harder skills,” Biles said at the time. “So we do, and then they don’t credit it, and I don’t think that’s fair.”