Before Simone Biles began the first routine of her anticipated return this month, the moment held significance: The biggest star in gymnastics had decided to compete again after a two-year layoff following a profoundly public disappointment at the Tokyo Olympics. By the time the U.S. Classic ended, with Biles winning comfortably, her status as the world’s most dominant gymnast seemed restored and secure.
As Biles prepares for this weekend’s U.S. championships in San Jose, where she could win her eighth all-around national title, her previous competition mirrored performances of the past. She won by five points — a massive margin in a sport that sometimes separates athletes by thousandths of a point. She attempted skills so difficult that she had a significant edge against her competitors before anyone performed. And she executed them so well that she didn’t need that cushion. Biles in her 2023 debut looked similar to Biles of the past, and she followed a script comparable to the one that resulted in 23 gold medals at the Olympics and world championships combined.
Biles’s five-point victory over all-around runner-up Leanne Wong this month was the largest single-day winning margin of her senior elite career, which began in 2013. However, many of the top American contenders did not perform on all four apparatuses, which is relatively common at that event held just a few weeks before nationals. This weekend’s competition will offer a better glimpse into how far Biles stands above the U.S. field, which includes 2022 world all-around silver medalist Shilese Jones, reigning Olympic all-around gold medalist Sunisa Lee and fellow Olympians Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey, though Lee will compete only on vault and beam.
After her U.S. Classic win, Biles wanted first to enjoy the accomplishment of returning to competition, but she added: “I’m in a really good spot.”
Biles already seems in position to enter the world championships this fall, and eventually the Paris Olympics, as the all-around gold medal favorite. Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade won the title in 2022 with a score of 56.899. Scoring at major global competitions is generally more strict than at domestic competitions, but Biles’s 2023 debut earned a 59.100, indicating she still has a major edge. Biles’s combined difficulty score at the U.S. Classic (25.7) also far exceeded that of Andrade (23.9) at last year’s world championships.
Only Russia’s Viktoria Listunova (58.532) and Angelina Melnikova (58.166) have earned all-around scores this year somewhat close to Biles’s recent mark, according to data from the Gymternet, and Russian athletes are banned from international gymnastics competitions until the beginning of 2024, making their participation at the Olympics uncertain.
During Biles’s run of dominance, she has won every all-around competition she has entered since August 2013. Twice during two-day competitions, another gymnast earned a higher single-day mark — Kyla Ross on the second day of 2013 nationals, the meet that began this winning streak; and Lee on the second day of the Olympic trials in 2021 — but Biles prevailed with her two-day total.
For years, Biles has challenged the boundaries of what’s possible in the sport. She often seems to exist on a tier of her own, so the most relevant comparisons are between her current form and her past self.
After the U.S. Classic, Biles said she told her coach, “I think I’m in better shape than I was in 2021,” referring to her physical and mental condition.
Biles’s routines are still packed with difficulty. She tweaked the composition a bit, but in her return, she performed the most difficult vault in women’s gymnastics, the Yurchenko double pike. The Code of Points, which assigns difficulty values to each element, is adjusted in every Olympic cycle, and gymnasts strategically design routines that work best with those rules. Because of those changes, combined difficulty scores aren’t perfectly comparable over time, but Biles’s 25.7 this month was nearly the same as the 25.8 she tallied on the first day of the Olympic trials in 2021. And her routines seem to be well-constructed: They have those high difficulty values but mostly include skills Biles can perform consistently without much risk of major errors.
Biles’s coach Cecile Landi said Biles can do all the skills she could before the Tokyo Games. Most notably, Biles appeared to have no problem with twisting elements, which rattled her at the Olympics, though she admitted she gets “a little bit nervous.”
Biles added: “I think it’s just subconscious, but other than that, I know my body is capable.”
Here’s how Biles’s routines at the U.S. Classic compared to her performances of the past:
Vault
Biles performed her Yurchenko double pike in competition for just the second time, and it was excellent. That vault begins with a common entry — a round-off onto the springboard and a back handspring onto the vault — and is highlighted by what comes next: two flips in a pike position. Biles took a step to the side, and the most significant deduction was because her coach stood on the mat for safety, which is not allowed and costs five tenths of a point. (Biles’s coach Laurent Landi told the GymCastic podcast he made the decision and will continue to stand there as a spotter.) If Biles performs this vault at the world championships, she will be the first woman to do so, and it will be named for her.
Previously, Biles’s primary vault was a Cheng, which features a front layout with a 1½ twist after a round-off onto the springboard, then a half-turn while diving onto the vaulting table. Biles can add an extra half-twist to this vault — a double-twisting variation that is named for her — but she hasn’t done that in a competition since 2018.
The other vault Biles regularly performed leading up to the Tokyo Olympics was a two-and-a-half twisting Yurchenko, which, unlike the double pike, requires only one flip after her hands leave the apparatus. Biles has done this vault, known as an Amanar, for more than a decade.
To win individual medals, gymnasts must perform two vaults from different groups, which are based on the entry. Biles, for instance, could choose the Yurchenko double pike and the Cheng, but her preference is unclear because she did only one vault at the U.S. Classic.
Bars
Biles had to restructure her routine on bars because of a rule change: Gymnasts are no longer awarded credit for multiple Tkatchev-style elements (a skill in which a gymnast releases as she nears vertical, rotates and then re-grasps the high bar) from the same circling element (for Biles, a swing in a stretched position). Biles previously included that skill twice, once in a straddle position and again in a pike.
Beyond removing one of those releases, Biles’s routine is similar to that of the past. Her new routine is also efficient, with one extended series of five connected elements at the start (before, she had two sets of three connected elements), then a transition to the high bar just before her dismount.
At the U.S. Classic, Biles performed a simpler dismount — a full-twisting double tuck, rather than a double-twisting double tuck — but she connected it with a pirouetting element on the high bar. That penultimate skill — when she circles with her toes on the bar, then shoots to a handstand with a full pirouette — was the source of her most visible error. She had to arch her back to keep from falling from the handstand in the wrong direction.
Beam
Biles did not perform her double-twisting double tuck beam dismount, but she has done so just a few times in competitions. Cecile Landi cited that as a strategic decision. The increased difficulty value often doesn’t outweigh the possible landing deductions. So at the U.S. Classic, Biles performed a full-twisting double tuck, as she has many times in the past. It’s still such a hard element that not many gymnasts in the world can do it.
Much of Biles’s beam routine is identical to the one she performed in 2021. The most significant change is with her series of two leaps into a back pike salto; she now mounts the apparatus with the first leap and continues on with the series. Biles also removed a set of connected jumps; there are now stricter requirements for how jumps starting from a sideways position must be executed.
Landi said the philosophy when constructing Biles’s beam routine was, “Do what you have to do and get off.”
Floor
Biles’s floor routine had the most changes. Only one tumbling pass — a back double layout with a half twist, which is named for Biles, who usually connects it to a jump — remained the same.
The rest of her passes, though different, are still difficult. Rather than opening with a triple-twisting double tuck, another element named for her, she opted for a full-twisting double layout, which has a lower difficulty value but for Biles is a consistent option.
Biles upgraded her combination pass, previously a front layout with a full twist connected to a round-off, back handspring, full-twisting double tuck. She added a twist to the final element and now ends the pass with a double-twisting double tuck, which would be the hardest skill in many gymnasts’ routines, even without the front full at the start.
Biles used to end with a double-twisting double tuck, but she can’t repeat the element, so now she finishes with a back double layout, a skill that hadn’t been part of her routine since 2014.
With these passes, Biles is poised to have the hardest floor routine in the world. Perhaps most impressively, she stayed in bounds at the U.S. Classic with controlled landings, which is often where she has errors because her tumbling explodes with so much excess power.