by: Emma Hruby | Just Women’s Sports
Simone Biles took home a ninth All-Around title at the US Championships this weekend, extending her own record and setting the scene for a possibly dominant Olympics run.
Biles also won all four individual apparatus events she competed in: Floor, Beam, Vault, and Uneven Bars. Following the meet, Biles said she “couldn’t be more proud.”
“I couldn’t be more proud of how I’m doing this time in the year and just gaining that confidence over and over, getting myself back in front of a crowd and just doing what I do in practice,” Biles told the NBC broadcast on Sunday.
A 37-time world and Olympic medalist, Biles automatically qualified for the Olympic trials with her win. A third-straight Summer Games is now firmly within sight for Biles, who suffered from a mental block at the Tokyo Olympics that pulled her from the All-Around competition.
Biles took two years off from gymnastics after the Tokyo Games, emphasizing her ability to have fun as an essential component of her success.
“It took a lot mentally and physically to just trust my gymnastics again and most importantly trust myself,” Biles said at a news conference after Sunday’s competition. “I think that was the hardest part after Tokyo is I didn’t trust myself to do gymnastics.
“Everyone says I look like I’m having fun, so that’s good because I feel like most of the time if I’m not stressing or having anxiety, I do feel like I’m having fun.”
The reigning World Champion, the 27-year-old is once again looking like a front-runner to win the All-Around gold medal.
“Now, having gone to two Olympics, each one gets a little bit more stressful because I know exactly what to expect,” she said. “I know exactly what I expect from myself.”
Even amidst her dominance, Biles took the time to encourage her fellow competitors. Following a fall by Suni Lee, Biles offered up words of support to her former Olympic teammate, saying she knew exactly what Lee was going through.
“I dealt with that in Tokyo,” Biles said Sunday. “I just knew that she needed some encouragement and somebody to trust her gymnastics for her and to believe in her, so that’s exactly what I did.”
“I don’t think I could have done it without her,” Lee said about Biles after the meet. “She’s been one of my biggest inspirations for a long time. I know that we’re kind of teammates and competitors, but she’s somebody that I look up to.”