Last week, an NBC announcer questioned whether Simone Biles’ loving adoptive parents were her “real” parents.
But now, no one will question whether she is the greatest gymnast of all time. She has won three World Championships in a row, but, to be considered the greatest of all time, she had to win gymnastics’ cynosure prize: women’s Olympic All-Around. If she somehow choked in that competition, her ultimate dominance would be probably be questioned for the rest of her career.
But put that worry to rest. On Thursday, Simone Biles took home the Women's All Around title and her 11th gold medal.
Biles did get off to an atypically mediocre start. She actually was in second place after the second rotation (which is the uneven bars, Biles' weakest event). She scored a 15.866 on the vault which, for anyone else, is a fantastic score. For Biles though, who usually gets around a 16.000 on the vault, the score was a blow. She also scored a solid but unspectacular 14.966 on the uneven bars.
But this shaky start does not lend itself to fodder about Biles’ greatness. It, instead, proves her greatest. To be a great athlete is to have the moxie to compete at the highest level of excellence while under tremendous pressure.
And Biles did that.
On her last event, floor exercise, with the end result of the meet still in doubt, Biles performed her best. She obtained a whopping “15.933, the highest of the day on any apparatus” which allowed her to finish two points ahead of USA teammate Aly Raisman, who got the silver medal.
