Simone Biles won her ninth national all-around title on Sunday night to close out the U.S. gymnastics championships in Fort Worth, Texas.
She won the gold medal on all four apparatuses and was nearly perfect throughout the entire competition as she gears up for a third Olympics run this summer in Paris.
The win in Texas officially clinched a spot for Biles in the U.S. Olympic Trials later this summer. She is now the first gymnast, man or woman, to win nine all-around national titles. Biles already owned that record after she broke a tie with Alfred Jochim for the record with her eighth win last year. That win also made her the oldest woman to ever win the title.
Biles finished with an all-around total score of 119.750. She fell once on the vault while trying to come out of her signature Yurchenko double pike. That cost her a one-point deduction and marked her first fall of the season.
The win on Sunday came after Biles rolled through the field at the U.S. Classic last month to win the all-around title. Skye Blakely finished in second place with a 113.850. She narrowly beat out Kayla DiCello, who won the bronze medal with a score of 110.800. Shilese Jones didn’t participate due to a shoulder injury. Both Jones and Kaliya Lincoln were granted petitions to participate in the Olympic Trials.
Biles is getting back into the swing of things in the lead up to the Olympics later this summer after she both led Team USA to the team title at the World Gymnastics Championships last fall and earned The Associated Press’ Female Athlete of the Year award in 2023.
Though she will still go through qualifying later this summer, Biles is sure to be one of the most-followed athletes in the world in France for the Olympics. It will mark her first games since she experienced the “twisties” at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and sat out multiple competitions in what was a stunning development for the four-time Olympic gold medalist.
Once again, though, Biles seems like she’s back to her old self. The Olympic trials will kick off on June 27 in Minneapolis, about a full month before the opening ceremony in Paris.
