Simone Biles, Transcendent Again, To Lead U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Team: NPR

MINNEAPOLIS — For most gymnasts, a slip off the beam, a foot off the line on a floor exercise and too many steps after landing on vault could be enough to ruin a chance at victory.

But this is Simone Biles we’re talking about.

For Biles, already the most decorated gymnast in history at 27, a somewhat eventful night at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials was still enough to finish more than 5.5 ahead of her competitors. points – and officially secures a place on the team that will compete at this summer’s Games in Paris.

And the crowd didn’t mind the slip-ups. After her floor routine, her final event of the night, Biles left the podium to a standing ovation from the 16,000 people packed into the stands at the Target Center in downtown Minneapolis.

Olympic gold is the next cornerstone awaiting Biles’ remarkable return to dominance after a two-year hiatus from competition. In 2021, she was forced to withdraw from several events in Tokyo after experiencing “twisties”, a psychological phenomenon in which a gymnast loses the ability to control her body in the air. The two-year break, she said, was necessary to heal her mental health.

Biles will enter the Paris Olympics as the favorite to win gold medals in the individual all-around, vault and floor exercise.

In Paris, she will be joined by Tokyo Games all-around gold medalist Suni Lee, a native of Saint-Paul who shone Sunday night in front of a friendly hometown crowd.

Two other Olympic veterans, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey, will return for their second Games. Newcomer Hezly Rivera, who turned 16 earlier this month, will round out the team. Two alternates, Joscelyn Roberson and Leanne Wong, will also travel with the team.

The women’s team won gold in the team all-around in 2012 and 2016, then finished second at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics after Biles withdrew from the event.

Injuries loom over women’s events

A series of injuries before and during the first day of competition cast a pall over the women’s trials. First, Skye Blakely injured her Achilles tendon during pre-competition training on Wednesday; Blakely’s second-place finish at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships qualified her for the Olympics.

Then, on Friday, Shilese Jones, another Paris team favorite, twisted her knee while warming up for vault. Minutes later, a third gymnast, Kayla DiCello, was forced to leave the competition in a wheelchair after injuring her Achilles tendon on vault.

Friday’s back-to-back injuries shook other competitors. Suni Lee, who was scheduled to jump immediately after DiCello, had to wipe away tears before taking the podium.

“A lot of athletes get scared when they see someone get hurt, and they don’t want that to happen to them.” check first reference Chiles said Friday after Jones and DiCello’s injuries, “But I try to keep that in mind because I don’t want to think about it all the time.”

The U.S. men’s gymnastics team heads to Paris hoping to win its first team medal since 2008.

The men’s team was announced Saturday night. The five competitors, led by Olympic veteran Brody Malone and newcomer (and social media star) Fred Richard, are headed to Paris with the goal of winning the first U.S. team medal in gymnastics since 2008.

“We shouldn’t even just be aiming for a medal. We should be aiming for gold, and we’re going to land on something,” Richard said Saturday.

Richard, 20, had the highest total at the U.S. team trials, while Malone, 24, finished second. They will be joined in Paris by Asher Hong, Paul Judah and Stephen Nedoroscik, as well as alternates Shane Wiskus and Khoi Young.

A secondary goal for the team — besides a return to the team medal podium — is simply to raise the profile of men’s gymnastics, a sport that has long been overshadowed by its women’s counterpart.

“If we go to Paris and get a team medal like we trained for, then that will add even more fuel to the fire,” Hong said Saturday.