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GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Simone Biles is human. The proof came halfway through her beam routine at the world championships Thursday night, when a front flip ended with Biles reaching forward and squeezing the piece of wood as hard as she could with both hands.

Twenty minutes later, Biles finished a tumbling run with her right foot so far out of bounds it might as well have landed in Edinburgh, an hour to the east.

“I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m not supposed to be on this,’” Biles said, laughing.

Not that it mattered. While Biles might indeed be human, she’s not beatable. Not now, and unless her peers do some serious cramming over the nine months, not at next summer’s Olympics, either.

Despite the flubs, the meet ended the way it always does when Biles is in the field, with the 18-year-old supernova standing on top of the podium with a gold medal around her neck kind of dumbstruck at how this keeps happening. Her third straight world title came by the biggest margin yet, 1.083 points over teammate, buddy and reigning Olympic champion Gabby Douglas and bronze medalist Larisa Iordache of Romania

“If I could crawl out of my skin and see it, it would be really amazing,” she said.

Kind of.

“I just keep blowing my own mind because yes there are goals that I have and then I dream of it and then I make it a reality,” Biles said. “I’m just shocked by myself.”

It’s just that the result is no longer shocking. Biles is in the midst of a run unprecedented in this era of women’s gymnastics, when peaks are typically measured in months and not years. Yet she is still improving, still pushing the boundaries.

Her performances have become events during an unbeaten streak at more than two years and counting, one that doesn’t appear in danger of ending anytime soon. She combines groundbreaking tumbling — there’s even a move named after her on the floor exercise — with nearly flawless execution.

Yet while Biles will be the overwhelming favorite in Rio next August, her toughest competition will likely from her own ridiculously loaded team. Douglas became the first reigning Olympic gold medalist to reach the podium at worlds since the Soviet Union’s Yelena Davydova in 1981.

The 19-year-old showed flashes of the brilliance that made her a star in London three years ago, her uneven bars routine done with the kind of precision and grace that originally caught national team coordinator Martha Karolyi’s eye.

“I’m excited for the road ahead,” Douglas said. “I’ve got bigger skills coming along.”

Douglas and everyone else will need them if they want to end an undefeated run that’s now at 10 straight meets, even if this one seemed to come a little harder than most.

self, but it was just like I had to look to make sure.”

 

Source:  The Grio