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Gymnastics

Alabama gymanstics Rachel Rybicki wins top academic honor, NCAA Elite 90 award

April 16, 2025 by Tara S

Maxwell Donaldson | Gadsden Times

Alabama gymanstics Rachel Rybicki brought home a pretigious academic honor on Tuesday.

Rybicki won the Elite 90 award for NCAA Division I women’s gymnastics, going to the top student-athlete academically at each of the NCAA’s 90 national championships. The award was given during an award banquet on Tuesday as Rybicki had the top GPA of all gymnasts at the NCAA Championship in Fort Worth, Texas.

Rybicki becomes the fifth Alabama gymanst to win the award but the first since Lauren Beers won three straight from 2014-16. She holds a 4.00 GPA as she is double majoring in economics and finance, with a minor in spanish.

“Rachel always brings a fierce commitment to excellence to everything she does and has truly established herself as a difference maker within our program. Her positivity is contagious, and she truly invests in others while taking exceptional ownership in every aspect of her development. We couldn’t be more proud of Rachel for earning the Elite 90 award, as this is a true reflection of who she is both on the floor and in the classroom,” head coach Ashley Johnston said.

Rybicki has earned two Scholastic All-American honors and been a member of the SEC Academic Honor Roll twice. She earned a spot on the 2025 SEC Gymnastics Community Service Team and will intern with Goldman Sachs over the summer.Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.REGIONAL FINALS: Alabama gymnastics advances to NCAA Championships with season high score, Florida advances

Rybicki has a season best score of 9.9 on beam and 9.925 on floor as she helped the Crimson Tide to their 40th national championship appearance.

The Crimson Tide start the championships on Thursday at 3:30 p.m. on ESPN2 with Oklahoma, Missouri and Florida in the semifinals, with the top two scores advancing to the finals.

Filed Under: Gymnastics

Simone Biles Is SI’s 2024 Sportsperson of the Year

January 3, 2025 by Tara S

Stephanie Apstein | Sports Illustrated

imone Biles stood alone and stared at the 25 meters separating herself from the vault table, from her greatest fears, from her legacy. She had just turned to her closest friend on the U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team, Jordan Chiles, and asked the question on everyone’s mind: What if it happens again?

Chiles gaped. Biles had been kidding around earlier, reminding her teammates—in case they’d forgotten—that the last time they were at the Olympic team final, her entire world had collapsed. But this quiet moment in Paris last July felt just a bit more serious. “I think maybe half her brain was joking,” Chiles says now. “But the other half was like, Uhhh …”

Her teammates and coaches wondered the same thing. So did journalists, broadcasters and fans. At the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Biles contracted a case of the twisties—gymnastics vertigo—and lost her bearings in the air during her vault at the team final, then withdrew from event after event. 

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Up Next – Simone Biles Is SI’s 2024 Sportsperson of the Year-00:15

Eventually she stripped the twisting dismount from her balance beam routine and took bronze. Then she quit gymnastics entirely. When she resumed competing two years later, every performance held drama. Once fans had asked themselves: What will the greatest gymnast of all time do next? Now they thought: Can she do this at all? 

No one was quite sure how Paris would unfold. On the day before the opening ceremony, the team took the floor for podium training—their first practice on the hard competition surface—and just about everyone stared at Biles. Volunteers filmed on their phones. Other gymnasts paused their routines. American fans woke up in the early morning hours to watch the livestream. On vault, Biles pulled off a flawless Yurchenko double pike, or Biles II—two flips with her legs perpendicular to her body, giving her no margin for error—drawing gasps from the crowd of journalists. “We’re all breathing a little bit better right now,” said coach Cécile Landi afterward. “I’m not going to lie.”

Biles Sportsperson of the Year
Shaniqwa Jarvis/Sports Illustrated

Three days later, Biles sealed the U.S.’s spot in the team event and qualified first in the all-around and on the vault, floor exercise and balance beam, despite aggravating a tear of her left calf. Her 59.566 was the second-best score of the Olympic cycle among gymnasts in the field, second only to her own performance at 2024 U.S. nationals. (She also owned the other eight spots in the top 10.)

And then came the team final, where the U.S. would start with the vault, the same event that had derailed her Olympics three years earlier. If it was going to happen again, this would be the moment.

You know what happened next, of course. Biles, 27, banished the twisties, and with them any question about her greatness. But you might not know what it took to get there. 

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Simone Biles is Sports Illustrated’s 2024 Sportsperson of the Year because she won gold, and then another gold, and then another; because she changed the face of her sport and the conversations around athletes in general; because she continues to speak out about issues that matter to her. And perhaps most of all because after she wondered aloud to Chiles whether she was about to relive the darkest period of her career, she took a deep breath, she saluted the judges and she broke into a run. 

Order Now: Get Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year issue


As Tokyo neared, so did disaster. Biles could feel it. She just wasn’t sure what form it would take. 

She had never really experienced failure. She had never suffered a serious injury. She had never fallen short. She had not lost an individual all-around event since she was a 16-year-old beaming through her braces.

 Sometimes she wondered if her run of success was “almost too good to be true,” she says. She adds, “In the back of my head, I was always worried about that. Because who has a career like that?”

To that point, pretty much just Biles. She was making a case for greatest of all time even before she made her Olympic debut, at 19, in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. She led the U.S. to gold in the team final, then captured first in the individual all-around, the vault and the floor exercise, and third on the balance beam. 

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She felt pressure even then—and shame when she stumbled in the beam final. She salvaged bronze, and she wanted to be proud of her recovery, but she knew she had disappointed others. Márta Károlyi, the national team coach at the time, greeted her afterward with a terse, “See, you can never lose a second of concentration.”

Simone Biles Tokyo Olympics
The twisties derailed her Tokyo Olympics and cost her two years of competition, but Biles reasserted her dominance in Paris. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

COVID-19 postponed the Tokyo Games by a year and gave Biles too much time to think. Something wasn’t right when she returned to the gym after lockdown, although she couldn’t identify quite what it was. “I’ve kind of given myself—I wouldn’t say mental blocks, but it’s definitely different,” she told SI in April 2021. She noticed that she would try a twisting skill but was unable to finish the twist. 

Chiles first grew concerned during the U.S. Olympic Trials that June. “Her face just didn’t look O.K. to me,” Chiles recalls. On the second night of competition, Biles fell on her beam routine and seemed disproportionately upset. “I kinda got in my head,” Biles admitted afterward. 

On the flight to Tokyo, she thought, This isn’t going to go how I want it to. She endured a rocky qualifying session but finished first overall and qualified for every event final, and the U.S. placed second as a team.  

By the next day, Chiles recalls, “something just turned off.” Biles started snapping at teammates, a completely out-of-character response. That night, alone in her hotel room, she practiced flipping and twisting on her bed. I know how to do gymnastics, she tried to remind herself. 

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So when she lost her air awareness and plummeted to the mat during the team final, everyone else was shocked. She fetched chalk and cheered as her teammates took silver without her. She withdrew from event after event, unable to tell up from down, sometimes unable to finish a practice because she was crying so hard. She was devastated that this was the moment her brain had chosen to break. It was not until later that she understood why.


For a long time, it looked like nothing bothered Biles. Under Károlyi and her husband Béla, who ran the U.S. national team for three decades, athletes followed strict rules that many have since said amounted to abuse. (Márta and Béla, who died in November, have always denied that they harmed the gymnasts.) As their program racked up medals, the Károlyis enforced an environment of isolation, dietary restriction and little tolerance for injuries or complaints. Gymnasts were discouraged from laughing. 

Biles posted photos of herself eating pepperoni pizza on Instagram. She snuck off at competitions and returned with cinnamon sugar pretzels. In Rio, the team was in the elevator leaving the Olympic Village and heading to team qualifiers when Márta went through the checklist: Do you have everything? Do you have your grips?

“No,” Biles deadpanned. “I forgot my grips to compete at the Olympics.”

“Simone is the only gymnast in history to feel confident enough to make a joke to Márta Károlyi when we’re on our way to compete at the Olympics,” says three-time Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman.

Biles would commit small acts of rebellion, then dominate the competition. She believed she was managing the mistreatment. Even when she revealed that she was one of the more than 500 athletes who had survived sexual abuse at the hands of longtime national team doctor Larry Nassar, she felt she was controlling what came next. 

After Nassar was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in state prison for first-degree criminal sexual conduct, and 60 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography, Biles tweeted that it was “impossibly difficult to relive these experiences” and return to the Károlyi Ranch, the site of many of the assaults. Three days later, USA Gymnastics severed ties with the facility. That summer, Biles criticized two USAG officials, one for her silence on the Nassar case, another for a tweet she made against Nike and Colin Kaepernick; both women resigned within weeks. Biles took pride in using her voice. But everyone wanted to hear from her, and the pressure built. 

Biles photos Sports Illustrated
Hair by Justin Revenge. Makeup by Deja Blackwell. Styling by Kesha McLeod for KMCME. Bodysuit and skirt by David Koma. Jewelry by Jacob & Co. | Shaniqwa Jarvis/Sports Illustrated

She combines the fame of a pop star with the demands of an athlete. Her life is soundtracked by the shrieks of little girls. At meets, the cheers begin during introductions and continue through the medal ceremony. She brings young fans in the stands to tears just by saying hello. 

After that, the cavernous Ariake Gymnastics Centre felt like a tomb. Spectators were barred from attending the Tokyo Olympics. Biles missed the fans. She missed her family more. Her parents, Nellie and Ron, had attended every meet of her life, usually in matching Team Biles gear. Her now husband, NFL safety Jonathan Owens, schedules offseason workouts so he can support her. Her younger sister Adria often screams so loudly that others turn to look. Before every meet, Biles finds them in the stands. 

In the lead-up to the Games, people—she declines to name them but says some still work at USAG—had referred to her as a guaranteed gold medal. They also expected her to shepherd the rest of the team to victory. She felt pressure to teach them how to be champions. 

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“We don’t ask for that when we’re 6 years old and sign up for it,” she says. “I wanted to do my sport. I didn’t want people to criticize every little thing that I do. I didn’t want millions and millions of followers. I just wanted to do gymnastics.”

So there she was, alone in an empty gym, surrounded only by everyone else’s expectations. The weight knocked her over. 

After three years of therapy, she is confident enough now to explain it: “Mental trauma from past years that can’t be swept under the rug anymore, that just is overflowing at that point,” she says.


Biles had wanted to make the Tokyo Olympics about herself. But she is not fundamentally a selfish person. She throws birthday parties for teammates and makes sure friends get home safely at night. When a celebrity acknowledges her, she feels guilty for having taken that person’s time. She enjoys life as a football wife in part because on Sundays, everyone is looking at Owens. 

In Tokyo, she tried to notice how many fellow Olympians thanked her for being brave enough to step aside, how many of her friends told her they’d never been prouder of her. But the haters were louder. 

She scrolled through videos of pundits calling her a national embarrassment. The noise drowned out her own thoughts. Wow, she remembers thinking as she left the floor. Thank God I made that decision. She knew she had saved her health and her teammates’ silver. Then she checked her phone. “Everyone’s like, ‘You’re a quitter!’ ‘You suck!’ ‘You’re a disgrace!’ ” she recalls now. “I felt strong. And then I was like, Maybe I’m weak. Maybe I should have tried. Maybe I should have—but then I was like, No, I just could not have. There’s no way.”

Adria, 25, still gets heated thinking about the idea that Simone withdrew solely because she felt stressed. The crossed wires in her brain produced a physical inability, Adria explains. It’s like the yips in golf—if yanking a putt could cause you to break your neck. “It wasn’t like a panic attack,” Adria says. “She’s trying one of the most difficult things in the world and she almost died!”

Biles had revolutionized the sport; she now has five skills that are named after her. Now she could do none of them.

But she held out hope that she could compete in the balance beam final. She pared her dismount down to a double pike, a flip so simple she hadn’t done it since she was 15 and took bronze. She called it the most meaningful medal of her career. 

Biles
Biles has won 33 consecutive all-around competitions at the national and international levels, a streak that dates back to 2013. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

When she got home and returned to the gym, she says, “I remember feeling broken a little bit. Because it’s what I love to do, and now I’m so terrified. So it didn’t really make sense, and I was kind of stumped. Like, why am I here? Do I want to be here? Is this what I want to do?”

Biles had done everything in gymnastics except find meaning in it. Now she had to try.

She spent more than six weeks in the fall of 2021 on the road headlining her post-Olympic event—the Gold Over America Tour, or GOAT—performing only skills she could land easily. After the tour, she tentatively returned to World Champions Centre, the gym her parents own near their home outside Houston. Now she has a hard time untangling those early days. “A lot of that is like trauma blocking,” she says. “You don’t really remember it.”

She does recall switching on her Tokyo teammates’ college meets—Chiles at UCLA, Jade Carey at Oregon State, Suni Lee at Auburn, Grace McCallum at Utah—and having to fight waves of nausea. So at first Biles returned to the gym not because she wanted to be able to do gymnastics again but because she wanted to be able to watch it.

She tried not to get ahead of herself. She just wanted to feel safe in what used to be her safe place. 

“The end goal wasn’t even the Olympics,” she says. “It was, like, be happy doing gymnastics again. Feel like you’re not gonna die.”

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“I remember feeling broken a little bit. Because it’s what I love to do and now I’m so terrified.”Simone Biles

She had stashed her Tokyo gear in a little-used guest room in her home, in what she now calls the forbidden Olympics closet. Sometimes she would pull out the leotards and Team USA pins and masks, and weep. But she always waited until Owens was out of the house.

“I never wanted to see him see me at my weakest point,” she says. “He put in so much effort and he showed so much support and love. I didn’t want him to think it wasn’t working.”

She had dabbled in therapy before, but she was familiar with an athlete’s injury program: Treat a problem until it improves, then stop. Now she prioritized that work, with the understanding that she might do it for the rest of her life. 

And she messed around in the gym. She bounced on the trampoline. She worked on skills you might see at a grade-schooler’s birthday party. She tried to stay in shape. She got lost in the air on consecutive days. She felt cured. She disappeared for weeks at a time. She practiced twice per day. She felt everyone else’s eyes on her as she sobbed, terrified. She did not know if any of this would work. 

Every time, she would say she was going to quit. And every time, she would come back. 


She was not yet cured when she first told her coaches, Cécile Landi and her husband, Laurent, that she wanted to shoot for Paris, less than two years away. 

Their answer came fast: “No.”

Biles was astonished. “I think they were just worried,” she says. “Mentally, could I do it, and if I don’t do it, would that break me?”

Biles and her family
Biles turned to her parents and sister for support as she worked her way back to gymnastics competitions. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

Eventually they all agreed that she would try to rediscover her love for the sport before she aimed at any particular competition. The coaches were in charge of setting her schedule. She would just worry about her gymnastics. She never came out and told her mom what she had in mind, although Nellie could tell. And she did not approve. 

“We didn’t want her to! Are you kidding me?” Nellie says with a hard-earned laugh. “I’m like, Girl! Don’t put me through this again! I wanted her to move on with her life.”

She never told her daughter how hard it had been for the people close to her, she says. While Simone was headlining her tour, her coaches and family stayed in Houston, tried to get back to their lives … and realized they couldn’t. They had been in triage mode during the Tokyo Games; it was not until everything slowed down that they allowed themselves to mourn. They took turns blaming themselves. Even now, Cécile feels sick when she watches footage from Tokyo. Looking back on it, Nellie wishes that when she was finding Simone a therapist, she had found one for herself, too. She thinks her daughter probably still doesn’t understand what those months were like. 

“No, no, absolutely not, absolutely not,” Nellie says softly. “Because I never discussed my feelings . I don’t think she knew how hard it was for the coaches.”

Biles and Landi
As Biles tried to recover and regain her love for gymnastics after Tokyo, Landi (above, right) helped her find a way back. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

She did not try to dissuade her daughter. But when she saw the leotards for the 2023 U.S. Classic, Simone’s first competition since Tokyo, Nellie bawled. We’re gonna go through this again, she thought.

Meanwhile, Simone was having her own second thoughts. When Laurent told her in July that he had signed her up for the U.S. Classic, in August, she panicked. She began falling on her routines. 

“He’s like, ‘Well, that’s your anxiety,’ ” she recalls. “ ‘Because two weeks ago, you could do everything.’ ”

She was attempting among the most dramatic comebacks in sports history. The trick was not to think of it that way. 

“The hardest part of coming back,” she says, “was learning to trust myself again.”


She had invented so many skills. Now she had to hone the one that mattered most. 

“You do feel forced ,” she says now. “You do feel like you have to accomplish something, and that has weight that you carry, and nobody realizes that. It’s hard and it’s not always fun. So we have to really remember why we’re doing it, who we’re doing it for, and if this is really an enjoyable experience that we can look back on in a couple years . There’s a lot to take in consideration, especially that we’re so much older. You can just, like, have a great life, go get a job and move on.”

Adria was relieved to hear her sister talk about her new motivation. In the past, Adria felt like Simone was doing it for the fans. “She was always trying to please other people,” Adria says. “And a lot of the people she was trying to please betrayed her.”

Indeed, when Biles made that return, 733 days after her Tokyo bronze, at the U.S. Classic, she expressed astonishment—not that she had seemingly overcome the twisties but that the fans had embraced her. 

“They still have so much belief in me,” she marveled a few minutes after obliterating the field. “They still love me.”

Biles Sports Illustrated photos
Romper by SER.O.YA. Shorts by Retrofête. Shoes by Giuseppe Zanotti.Jewelry by Effy Jewelry. | Shaniqwa Jarvis/Sports Illustrated

She won the U.S. championships, too, and the world championships trials. At the 2023 worlds, in Antwerp, Belgium, she became the first woman to land the Yurchenko double pike in international competition; it became the fifth skill named after her. Her sixth world championship all-around gold and three more in event finals gave her 30 world medals, the most in history. The next summer, she mowed down her opponents at the U.S. Classic and the U.S. championships. 

When she won the Olympic trials, guaranteeing her a spot on the Paris team, she became at 27 the oldest woman to compete for the U.S. in gymnastics at the Games in 72 years. After so many months of focusing only on the goal directly in front of her, she was ready to admit she wanted two things: gold in the team final and gold in the individual all-around. 

Within a few minutes of her Olympic return in Paris, both looked out of reach. During warmups for the floor exercise, Biles felt a tug in her lower leg, where she had torn her calf in June. 

“My calf or something just pulled,” Biles told Cécile. “Like, all the way.” The coach tried to appear calm, but she was panicking. “At the moment she came to tell me that,” she says now, “I went back to Tokyo.”

Biles Paris
In Paris, Biles won her 11th Olympic medal, tying her for second all-time among female gymnasts. | Simon Bruty/Sports Illustrated

So did Biles. Not again, she thought. She opted to have her calf taped and return to competition, despite pain that would have her crawling, then hopping, down the vault runway. As Tom Cruise, Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande looked on, Biles dominated the rest of the event. Afterward, Raisman asked her how on earth she had done it. “I just can’t have people calling me a quitter again,” Biles said.

She still cared what people thought. But instead of letting them define her, she wanted to define herself for them.

Over the next two days, her calf improved. The morning of team finals, she told her therapist that she felt calm and ready. She visualized herself nailing her routines. She FaceTimed with Owens, who had just arrived in Paris after receiving the Bears’ permission to miss a few days of training camp. She teased teammates: “Remember what happened the last time we were at team finals?” She was fine. 

Still, as she prepared to begin on the vault, she felt her heart rate quicken. What if it happens again? Chiles raced to reassure her. “It’s not going to happen again,” she said. “You’re fine.”

Biles knew that, of course. “It was just the little voice in my head,” she says now. “I knew I had worked way too hard, way too much in therapy, figured out all that stuff.” The weight was no lighter. But she was stronger. 

“You kind of have to go up there and tell yourself, I’m a boss ass b—-.”Simone Biles

She raced down the runway, flung herself onto the springboard and flipped and twisted through the air. She burst into a grin as she landed. Their gold medal would not be official for nearly two hours, but she knew right away. 

Two days later, in the individual all-around, Biles finally faced an opponent other than herself. Rebeca Andrade of Brazil had won gold in the vault in Tokyo in Biles’s absence, and she’d done it again in 2023 in Antwerp in Biles’s presence. Biles has always succeeded because she can do skills so difficult that no other gymnast comes close, giving her extra margin for error on execution. But Andrade comes closer than anyone else. 

Biles and Chiles
The 2024 U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team was the most diverse in history, as four of the five members—including Biles and Jordan Chiles (right)—were women of color. | David E. Klutho/Sports Illustrated

Both gymnasts began on vault, where Biles pushed herself to do her Yurchenko double pike—the hardest vault ever performed by a woman, the one that has terrified her every single time she has attempted it. 

It gave Biles a cushion, and she would need it: She rushed through a skill on the high bar, which affected her timing as she transitioned to the low bar; she had to bend her legs to keep from scraping the ground. She finished the rotation in third place, after Andrade and Kaylia Nemour of Algeria. Furious with herself, Biles paced the floor and made eye contact with Owens, who gave her a thumbs up. Biles forced herself to stay calm. Up next was beam, the most mentally demanding event. She had to decide to succeed. 

“You kind of have to go up there and tell yourself, I’m a boss ass b—-,” she says. 

She nailed her routine, catapulting herself back into first, where she would remain. Before her floor routine, Laurent reminded her to stay focused and have fun. “Show them who’s the best,” he said. She knew as she finished that she had done enough. Her smile could have lit the Eiffel Tower. 

Biles now has five eponymous skills, including two on the vault.
Biles now has five eponymous skills, including two on the vault. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

Three days later, she won gold on the vault. Then she finished fifth on the beam and took silver, to Andrade, on the floor exercise. While warming up for that event, Biles flew out of bounds on her triple-twisting double somersault. She wondered: Did I just get lost in the air?

This time, instead of letting the twisties scare her, she laughed at them. This would be the cherry on top! she thought. Oh well! 

As it turned out, she had not overcooked her triple double because she’d gotten lost in the air. She was simply too powerful. The silver was her 11th Olympic medal, tying her for second all-time among female gymnasts. That plus her 30 world championship medals makes her the most decorated gymnast ever.


Three months later, days after finishing the 2024 Gold Over America Tour, Biles has transitioned fully to football wife. She is coordinating which friends will attend Bears games with her and trying to choose a heavy winter coat to buy.

She is also fighting a cold. This happens every time she takes a break from gymnastics. “It’s like I’m allergic to the outside world,” she laments. “Like I’m allergic to not flipping.”

For a while, at least, her body will have to get used to sitting still. She does not know whether this break will be permanent, and she is years away from having to decide; after all, she trained less than two years for Paris. And as with any athlete, there are financial incentives for continuing. But Biles does not sound like someone who plans to compete in Los Angeles in 2028. 

Biles and Jonathan Owens
With the Paris Olympics and the Gold Over America Tour behind her, Biles is spending her weekends attending her husband’s NFL games. | Ben Hsu/Icon Sportswire/Getty Images

If Tokyo was about proving something to the world and Paris was about proving something to herself, what would L.A. have to be about for her to return?

“Life and death,” she says. “Because I’ve accomplished so much, there’s almost nothing left to do, rather than to just be snobby and to try again and for what? I’m at a point in my career where I’m humble enough to know when to be done. 

“If you go back, you’ll be greedy. Those are the consequences. But that’s also your decision to decide. What sacrifices would be made if I go back now? When you’re younger, it’s like, prom, college. Now it’s like, starting a family, being away from my husband. What’s really worth it?” She doesn’t know the answer. 

She is not ready to grapple with her legacy, either. “I don’t think the reality has set in of what I’ve exactly done in the sport,” she says. “I can see it, and I hear it from people, and I see a glimpse of it, but the full magnitude I don’t think I’ve realized just yet. I don’t think I’ll realize ’til maybe I retire and look back in a couple years like, Damn, she was good. Because I can see that, but I do it every day. So for me, it’s normal.”

“I’m at a point in my career where I’m humble enough to know when to be done.”Simone Biles

Many great athletes win medals. Fewer redraw the face of a sport. 

When Biles was a child, she believed her ceiling as a Black gymnast was a college scholarship. When Gabby Douglas won Olympic gold in 2012, Biles reimagined what was possible. This year, seven of the 15 women at the U.S. Olympic Trials were Black. 

She has also helped redefine gymnastics as a sport that’s not just for teenagers. Before Tokyo, the oldest all-around gold medalist in the past 50 years was 20-year-old Simona Amânar of Romania, in 2000. But for the first time since 1952, the U.S. women’s gymnastics team featured four returning Olympians: Biles, Carey, 24; Chiles, 23; and Lee, 21. The team’s average age of 22.47 was the highest in U.S. history by more than a year. 

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“COVID made me realize that gymnastics is, in a weird way, easier older, because your body doesn’t change that much,” says Cécile. “The ones who struggled were the 14- to 18-year-olds, because the body changed. you still have the motivation and the right training, you can last.” That understanding has changed the way she coaches, she says, with an eye toward longevity.

And Biles’s greatest legacy might extend beyond gymnastics. 

“After Tokyo, I said to , ‘There has to be so many people around the world that were suffering in silence and struggling with their mental health. You have no idea how many of those people you helped,’ ” says Raisman. “She helps people feel less alone.”

Biles isn’t sure what life might look like after she retires. She wants to continue her work with Friends of the Children, a nonprofit that matches children in foster care with long-term mentors. (Biles’s parents adopted her and Adria from foster care.) She wants to take a more active role in designing a 2025 collection with Athleta. She and Owens are building a house outside Houston. 

She is also growing more comfortable showing all sides of herself. In Paris, she teased her teammates during press conferences, and she jokingly begged Andrade to take it easy on her. Biles also collaborated on a Netflix docuseries, Simone Biles Rising, that was released last summer and fall. At one point, the cameras linger on an extended scene in the couple’s hotel room before the first day of the U.S. Olympic Trials in which Biles, visibly anxious, picks minor fights with Owens. “I’m being mean to him,” she acknowledges a few minutes later. “My mom says I’m mean on meet days.” She even gives the crew a tour of her forbidden Olympics closet. 

Biles saw the episodes before they aired. She never asked for a single scene to be removed. “I think she sees the value in just being honest and true,” says Katie Walsh, who directed the project and produced the 2021 digital series Simone vs. Herself. “I think that’s why she is such an appealing person, and why people have really connected with her. Because you can’t relate to her gymnastics. You’re never going to know what that feels like. But you can relate to being a little stressed and impatient before a big moment.”

Biles and her fans
Weekly therapy sessions and support from her husband, family and fans helped Biles cope while she remained in the spotlight. | Erick W. Rasco/Sports Illustrated

At the Philadelphia stop on Biles’s post-Olympic tour in October, it is clear how many people see elements of themselves in her. Maddie and Katie, a pair of 13-year-olds from the neighboring suburbs, discuss what they have learned from Biles. Neither mentions gymnastics. “There’s a lot of mean people,” says Maddie. “She realizes that if you respond to them with anger, then they’re just gonna keep doing it. You’ve just gotta ignore them, and one day you’re gonna wake up and they’re gonna be praising you.”

Biles knows her audience: A Taylor Swift–heavy playlist gives way to a Barbie homage, and at one point, the gymnasts—among them Carey, Chiles and Joscelyn Roberson, an Olympic team alternate for Paris—act out a scene aboard a plane, complete with announcements from “Your captain, Simone.” The show ends with a series of short interviews with the gymnasts and a photo montage of them flipping and twisting as children. 

But the most meaningful portion comes before any of that. “We have this moment in our introduction where they call out Simone’s name, and the way these little kids pour out all of their energy—I don’t think I’ll ever forget it,” Roberson says. “And they did that at 32 different stops.”

The tour offered a public celebration of all Biles has done. She had already taken stock privately. After Paris, she spent a few days in Houston, then flew to Chicago. It was there that she began to understand what she had accomplished. She let out her three dogs—bulldog Zeus and French bulldogs Lilo and Rambo—and sat for nearly two hours watching them race around and bark and play fight. Amid the chaos, she finally felt peace. Wow, she thought. I did that.

“It’s crazy,” she says now, “That I have the privilege and I have the mental strength to accomplish my wildest dreams.”

She does not know what will come next. All she knows is that she will run toward it.

Filed Under: Athlete Spotlight, Gymnastics, Women in Sports, Women's Sports

U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team sets out for its ‘redemption tour’

July 3, 2024 by Tara S

  • By Nick Zaccardi | NBC Sports

In past Olympics, the U.S. women’s gymnastics roster included athletes who seemed destined to make the team throughout the four-year cycle.

That was not the case this time.

Simone Biles went two years without competing after the Tokyo Olympics.

Last year, Suni Lee was told by a doctor that she probably wouldn’t be able to do gymnastics again due to two kidney diseases.

Fellow Tokyo Olympians Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey competed throughout this Olympic cycle, but both were beaten out for spots on the 2023 World Championships team by younger gymnasts.

Hezly Rivera was in the junior division last year. She began the run-up to the Olympic Trials by placing 24th at the Core Hydration Classic last month.

Yet Biles, Lee, Chiles, Carey and Rivera make up the team for the Paris Games. That lineup wouldn’t have been predicted before injuries took out three contenders over a three-day stretch last week.

Skye Blakely, the 2024 U.S. all-around silver medalist, ruptured her right Achilles in training Wednesday.

Shilese Jones, a 2022 and 2023 World all-around medalist, injured her left leg on a vault Friday before competition began.

Kayla DiCello, the 2021 World all-around bronze medalist, ruptured an Achilles on her opening vault Friday.

That left 13 gymnasts to perform over two days of all-around competition on Friday and Sunday in Minneapolis.

Biles continued her excellent comeback by winning the trials by 5.55 points, which was greater than the margin separating runner-up Lee from ninth place.

She extended her all-around win streak to 30 consecutive meets dating to 2013. Biles has the world’s top handful of all-around scores in this Olympic cycle, according to the Gymternet.

At 27, she will be the oldest U.S. Olympic female gymnast since 1952.

“I never pictured going to another Olympic Games after Tokyo just because of the circumstances,” said Biles, who dealt with the twisties at the last Olympics. “I never thought I would go back in the gym again, be twisting, feel free.”

0 seconds of 6 minutes, 58 secondsVolume 0%

Lee, the Tokyo Olympic all-around champ, was sidelined for a few months in early 2023 and ultimately diagnosed with two kidney diseases.

She has been in remission since late last year and returned to all-around competition at the Xfinity U.S. Championships four weeks ago.

“I’m so, so glad that I never gave up,” she said. “There were so many times where I thought about just quitting and just kind of walking away from the sport because I didn’t think that I would ever get to this point.”

Chiles was a revelation in 2021. She made the Tokyo Olympic team with neither senior world championships experience nor a top-three finish in a U.S. junior all-around.

She backed it up in 2022 with three medals at the world championships. That impressively came after a full freshman season at UCLA. Rarely has a woman so successfully flipped back and forth between college and elite gymnastics.

In 2023, Chiles took a break after her sophomore season at UCLA and had an abbreviated, month-long run-up to summer elite meets. She was fifth at the 2023 U.S. Championships and ninth at a world championships team selection camp. She did not make the world team.

“This moment, it felt so far away, but it felt so close,” Chiles said Sunday night. “I felt like in times and weeks, I could just grasp it and be like, oh my gosh, I’m almost there. And then other times, I’m just like, I feel like this is 150 years away.”

Similarly, Carey matriculated at Oregon State after winning the Tokyo Olympic floor exercise title.

She also won three medals at the 2022 Worlds. She also didn’t make the 2023 World team (after placing 15th at nationals).

Yet at Olympic Trials, Carey had her two best days of all-around in two years to finish fourth.

“This is the most stressful meet I’ve ever been a part of in my life,” she said. “Just those past experiences really helped me, reminded me of why I’m doing this sport and where I want to go.”

Though Rivera is an outlier on this team — at 16, the only woman not in her 20s — she continues a tradition in U.S. women’s gymnastics.

From 1980 through 2016, every Olympic team included at least one woman who turned 16 (or younger) in the Olympic year. That streak was snapped in Tokyo.

Rivera, the 2023 U.S. junior all-around champion, joined the mix for this team by placing sixth at her senior nationals debut four weeks ago.

As things stand, she would be the youngest U.S. Olympian in Paris across all sports.

“2028 was the goal,” Rivera said.

Both Biles and Lee referred to Paris as “a redemption tour” after the U.S. took team silver in 2021 following golds in 2012 and 2016.

“I feel like we all have more to give, and our Tokyo performances weren’t the best,” Biles said. “We weren’t under the best circumstances, either. But I feel like we have a lot of weight on our shoulders to go out there and prove that we’re better athletes. We’re more mature. We’re smarter. We’re more consistent.”

Filed Under: Gymnastics, Olympics, Women in Sports, Women's Sports

SIMONE BILES WINS 9TH ALL-AROUND TITLE AT U.S. GYMNASTICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

June 4, 2024 by Tara S

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.”

Filed Under: Athlete Spotlight, Gymnastics

Core Hydration Classic: Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Gabby Douglas lead Olympic gymnastics push

May 15, 2024 by Tara S

  • By Nick Zaccardi | NBC Sports

The Core Hydration Classic on Saturday will display the depth of the U.S. women’s gymnastics program with 11 athletes in the field who own an Olympic or world championships medal.

No more than five of them can make the Paris Olympic team, which will be named after next month’s Olympic Trials.

At Classic, three U.S. Olympic all-around gold medalists will compete in the same meet for the first time in gymnastics history: Gabby Douglas (London 2012), Simone Biles (Rio 2016) and Suni Lee (Tokyo 2020).

They’re joined by Tokyo Olympic floor exercise gold medalist Jade Carey and Tokyo Olympic team silver medalist Jordan Chiles.

Plus six more women who have won at least one world championship medal — Shilese Jones, Skye Blakely, Kayla DiCello, Joscelyn Roberson, Leanne Wong and Lexi Zeiss, an alternate on the 2022 World team.

How to watch the 2024 Core Hydration Classic

The Classic airs live on CNBC and Peacock on Saturday from 7-9 p.m. ET. It also streams on NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app for CNBC subscribers. Live results will be here.

It’s followed by the Xfinity U.S. Championships from May 30 to June 2 in Fort Worth, Texas, and the Olympic Trials from June 27-30 in Minneapolis.

Separate selection committees pick the women’s and men’s Olympic teams after trials.

The women’s all-around winner at trials automatically makes the team.

The men’s all-around winner at trials makes the team if he is also among the top three on three of the six apparatuses. The men’s program is not participating at this year’s Classic as it focuses on prep for trials and the Olympics.

For the women, a three-person committee will choose the other four Olympic team members, taking into account athlete results dating back to last fall’s world championships.

Alicia Quinn, who is on the committee as the USA Gymnastics high-performance team leader, said that Classic is “another stepping stone” in the process.

“An athlete can have the ability to prove themselves, show their (routine) upgrades, if they’ve done anything different in the time since we’ve seen them at camp or a competition or coming back from an injury,” she said. “So it’s just an opportunity for them to continue to show their growth as an athlete and just how consistent and confident they are in their abilities.”

The Olympic team selection committee is the same trio that chose the 2023 World Championships team — Quinn, Tatiana Perskaia, an international judge and longtime coach (but with no current students in the running for an Olympic spot) and Jessie DeZiel, a former elite gymnast who is the athlete representative.

Quinn, a 2008 Olympic team silver medalist, said that she, Perskaia and DeZiel have been in regular communication after competitions and training camps. They have not had in-depth talks yet on the potential makeup of the Paris team.

Athletes are at different points in their training going into Classic.

Douglas competed three weeks ago in her first meet since the 2016 Rio Olympics. Biles competed last summer for the first time since the Tokyo Games, won her sixth world all-around title in October and will compete for the first time in 2024 at Classic. Lee has already competed twice this year as she works her way back after being diagnosed with two different types of kidney diseases in early 2023.

Quinn has typically been the committee member who tells the gymnasts when they’ve been invited for international competitions. So she expects to be the one who will read off the Olympic team after trials.

“When I have to stand up there and announce who it is, I’ll be fighting back tears knowing half the people in that room, or more than half, are going to be gutted a little bit and feeling let down,” she said.

Who is competing at the 2024 Core Hydration Classic?

The most up-to-date 2024 Core Hydration Classic field is here. At the time of publication, this was the athlete entry list:

Session 1 (2 p.m. ET, USA Gymnastics YouTube Channel)
Ly Bui
Chloe Cho
Norah Christian
Nicole Desmond
Reese Esponda
Kieryn Finnell
Jayla Hang
Cambry Haynes
Madray Johnson
Evey Lowe
Nola Matthews
Taylor McMahon
Annalisa Milton
Malea Milton
Zoey Molomo
Marissa Neal
Jazlene Pickens
Brooke Pierson
Hezly Rivera
Simone Rose
Lacie Saltzmann
Audrey Snyder
Izzy Stassi
Brynn Torry
Sabrina Visconti
CaMarah Williams

Session 2 (7 p.m. ET, CNBC, NBCSports.com, NBC Sports app, Peacock)
Simone Biles
Skye Blakely
Jade Carey
Dulcy Caylor
Jordan Chiles
Kayla DiCello
Amelia Disidore
Gabby Douglas
Tatum Drusch
Addison Fatta
Jazmyn Jimenez
Shilese Jones
Katelyn Jong
Suni Lee
Myli Lew
Kaliya Lincoln
Konnor McClain
Joscelyn Roberson
Ashlee Sullivan
Tiana Sumanasekera
Trinity Thomas
Leanne Wong
Kelise Woolford
Lexi Zeiss

Filed Under: Gymnastics, Olympics

Gymnast Morgan Price becomes first HBCU athlete to win national collegiate title

April 16, 2024 by Tara S

By Cara Tabachnick | CBS News

Gymnast Morgan Price became the first athlete from a historically Black college or university team to win a national collegiate championship on Friday.  

The Fisk University student clinched the title with an all-around score of 39.225 – and became “the first USAG Collegiate National Champion from an HBCU! ” said USA Gymnastics. She was among athletes from 12 college teams joining the competition at the USA Gymnastics’ 2024 Women’s Collegiate National Championships in West Chester, Pennsylvania. 

Price joined the first HBCU intercollegiate team at Nashville’s Fisk University in 2023 after graduating from high school. She initially signed onto Arkansas before switching to attend Fisk, ESPN reported, after Coach Corrine Tarver asked her the simple question: “Do you want to make history?”

Since forming, the gymnastics team has garnered high-profile media attention, competed on ESPN and has sold out meets.

“I have learned that it is enjoyable to be around your culture. Since we are the first, we have a lot of eyes on us, and our support system is excellent. Seeing the fans and little girls cheering us on was super fun,” Price said in 2023. 

Her team celebrated her win with a social media post saying, “THE PRICE IS RIGHT. Etch her name in the HISTORY BOOKS.”

Price will compete on Sunday in the Individual Event finals on vault, bars and floor.

Filed Under: AOTM, Athlete Spotlight, Collegiate Sports, Gymnastics Tagged With: morgan price

Black Female Athletes You Should Be Watching

January 31, 2024 by Tara S

Coco Gauff, A’ja Wilson, and Sha’Carri Richardson are some of the Black women in sports you should be keeping your eye on.

By: Noah A. McGee

The ladies are putting the sports world on notice. They’re here to stay.

With women’s sports continuing to grow it’s only right that we take note of some of the best Black female athletes who are dominating their sports. Coco Guaff just won the US Open, A’Ja Wilson just led the Las Vegas Aces to the best regular season ever and Sha’Carri Richardson just won the 100m at the world track and field championships.

The Black ladies in athletics are here to stay. Here are the ones you should be paying attention to:

Coco Gauff

The youngest lady on this list, Coco Gauff is only 19 years old and is already making waves in professional tennis. She recently won the US Open and has cemented herself as one of the faces of Women’s professional Tennis.

A’Ja Wilson

A’Ja Wilson has succeeded on every level of her basketball career. She was the number one ranked player coming out of high school. While at South Carolina, she was a national champion, NCAA tournament MOP, national player of the year, and a three-time first-team All-American. In 2018, she was drafted first overall in the WNBA draft and has since been named a WNBA champion, two-time MVP, a five-time all-star, a defensive player of the year, and rookie of the year.

This post-season, she’s hoping to lead the Las Vegas Aces to another WNBA championship.

Sha’Carri Richardson

Despite her controversial past, Sha’Carri Richardson has persevered to become one of the best track athletes in the world. A month ago, she the 100m at the world track and field championships in 10.65 seconds—a championship record time.

Jonquel Jones

Breanna Stewart may get all the attention as the best player on the New York Liberty, but Jonquel Jones is no slouch. She’s a four-time WNAB All-Star who won league MVP in 2021. She’s hoping to be apart of the reason the Liberty win a championship in 2023

Angel Reese

Angel Reese is among the most dominant players in the country and this past season was named a first-team All-America, the NCAA tournament most outstanding player (MOP), and an NCAA Champion. LSU legend Shaquille O’Neal named her the greatest athlete the university has ever produced. The only question left is, can Reese lead the Tigers to back-to-back titles?

Flau’jae Johnson

Angel’s teammate, Flau’jae Johnson is not just a talented hooper, she’s also a successful rapper. She went viral last year for a dope freestyle she had on Bars On I-95.

Naomi Osaka

Naomi Osaka has been a prodigy ever since she stepped on a professional tennis court. Despite being only 25 years old, she’s already won four majors, (two Australian Opens and two US Opens). Although she’s been on maternity leave for the past year, she’s ready to show that she’s still the best in the world.

Azzi Fudd

Azzi Fudd is a young college basketball player who just keeps getting better. Coming out of high school, she was the number one ranked player in the country and opted to go to the most storied women’s basketball program in the country, UCONN. During her freshman year, she helped lead her team to the 2022 Final Four. While the team didn’t make it that far in 2023, she’s hoping to lead a comeback this upcoming season.

Simone Biles

What can Simone Biles not do? She’s the most accomplished professional gymnast in the world. During the 2022 Olympics, she took a stand for athletes with mental health issues after she took a break during the games to focus on herself.

Aaliyah Boston

Following in A’Ja Wilson’s footsteps, Aaliyah Boston was also a star college athlete at the University of South Carolina. Currently, she’s the best player on a young Indiana Fever team and was recently named the 2023 WNBA Rookie of the Year.

Elaine Thompson-Herah

Usain Bolt ain’t the only successful Jamaican sprinter. The fastest woman in the history of the Olympics, Elaine Thompson-Herah set the Olympic record in the Women’s 100 Meters during the Summer Olympics in 2021. She edged out Florence Griffith Joyner’s long-standing record of 10.62 with a time of 10.61.

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

Before Thompson-Herah set the Olympic record in the women’s 100 meters, fellow Jamaican sprinter Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce ran the fastest time in nearly 33 years: 10.63 during an event in June 2021.

Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone

Sydney Mclaughlin-Levrone is also a track and field star who is among the fastest in the world. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she won two gold medals, one in the 400-meter hurdles and another in the 4×400-meter relay. She also set the world record in the 400-meter hurdles in 2022, clocking a time of 50.68.

Candace Parker

Candace Parker is a basketball legend who’s been the best at every level of her career. As a rookie in the WNBA, she won the WNBA MVP and the Rookie of the Year award. In 2021, she cemented her status as a Hall of Famer after leading her hometown team, the Chicago Sky, to their first-ever WNBA championship.

Britney Griner

Thankfully, Britney Griner is back home after spending more than 100 days in a Russian prison during most of 2022. People may have forgotten, but Griner is still an imposing physical presence in the WNBA and had an awesome 2023 season despite the Phoenix Mercury struggling as a team. She’s a nine-time all-star and a WNBA champion.

Elana Meyers Taylor

I know some of us don’t pay attention to the Winter Olympics, but you might want to start, in order to watch bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor do her thing. During the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, Taylor became the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympics history after taking home her fifth medal.

Erin Jackson

Along with being a brilliant athlete, Erin Jackson also has a degree in Materials Science & Engineering from the University of Florida. At the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the talented speed skater won gold in the 500 meter.

Claressa Shields

The ladies have hands too. Claressa Shields is one of the best Boxers out there. She won a gold medal at the 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics and is undefeated as a professional boxer.

Filed Under: Athlete Spotlight, Gymnastics, Martial Arts, Olympics, Tennis, Track and Field, Women's Basketball, Women's Tennis

10 BREAKOUT PERFORMANCES BY TEAM USA ATHLETES IN SUMMER SPORTS IN 2023

December 22, 2023 by Tara S

BY CHRÖS MCDOUGALL | Team USA

New stars emerge every four years at the Olympics and Paralympics. If you were paying attention in 2023, though, you might have caught a preview of what’s to come next summer.

The year before the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024 saw several breakout performances from Team USA athletes, results that included world championships, world records and drought-busting finishes.

Fans can follow along throughout the year at TeamUSA.com, but as we look ahead to the Olympic and Paralympic year in 2024, here are 10 athletes who showed in 2023 that they could be names to watch for in Paris:

Minna Stess, Skateboarding

Currently ranked 5th in the world, Minna Stess made history this year by placing third at the WST Park World Championship 2023 in Rome Ostia. In addition to securing crucial points for the Road to Paris 2024, Stess became the first U.S. woman ever to podium at an Olympic qualifier or Worlds event. At just 17 years old, she is considered the top U.S. female athlete in park skateboarding.

Sarah Adam of USA Wheelchair Rugby on the podium at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile.

Mark Reis: Team USA

Sarah Adam, Wheelchair Rugby

Long a mixed-gender sport in name only, wheelchair rugby in the United States now has a female star. Adam broke through to become the first U.S. woman to compete at the world championships in 2022, and in 2023 she established herself as a go-to scorer on a team with Paralympic gold-medal aspirations. Adam, who when not playing is a professor of occupational therapy at St. Louis University, played key roles for Team USA in two major tournaments this year, including the Parapan American Games in November in Santiago, Chile. A victory there made Adam the first woman to win Parapan Ams gold in the sport and secured Team USA’s spot in Paris next year. Only Chuck Aoki, a three-time Paralympic medalist, scored more points than Adam.

Hannah Chadwick of US Para Cycling walks with her guide Skylar Espinoza at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile.

Team USA

Hannah Chadwick guide Skyler Espinoza, Para-Cycling

Chadwick and her visual guide Espinoza didn’t plan to race the track sprint event at August’s world championships in Scotland. Yet in their first sprint race together, the new tandem won a bronze medal. Later, at the Parapan American Games, they opened with another unexpected win in the 3,000-meter individual pursuit. One day later they were back at their preferred 1,000-meter distance, and back atop the podium, this time in the time trial. The winning time also set a new Parapan Ams record for the event. In Paris, Chadwick, of El Cerrito, California, and Freeport, Maine, native Espinoza will aim to win Team USA’s first Paralympic medal in a visually impaired cycling event since 2008.

Cj. Nickolas smiling at the camera and holding up his gold medal

Mark Reis

CJ Nickolas, Taekwondo

The 21-year-old Nickolas put U.S. men’s taekwondo back on the map in May when he finished as runner-up in the men’s 80 kg. class at the world championships in Azerbaijan. Nickolas, of Brentwood, California, defeated the reigning Olympic bronze medalist in the semifinals before falling to the division’s top-ranked athlete in the final. In doing so, he became the first U.S. man to win a world championships medal in the sport since 2009. After no U.S. men qualified for the Olympics in taekwondo in 2021 — the first time that had happened — Nickolas should be in position to not only qualify for Paris but maybe even contend for a medal.

noelle malkamaki

Noelle Malkamaki, Para Track & Field

Breaking a world record is so fun Malkamaki decided to do it three times this summer. The 22-year-old from Decatur, Illinois, first established a new global mark in the women’s shot put F46 at the U.S. championships in May. In July, she did it twice more at the world championships in Paris. Her final throw of 13.32 meters secured both the world title and her second world record of the day. Malkamaki, who throws collegiately for DePaul, only recently began throwing in Para competitions, and already she’s a favorite for a Paralympic medal next year in Paris.

Bronze medalist Frederick Richard of Team United States celebrates during the medal ceremony for the Men's All Around Final on Day Six of the 2023 Artistic Gymnastics World Championships at Antwerp Sportpaleis on October 05, 2023 in Antwerp, Belgium.

Getty Images

Fred Richard, Gymnastics

Richard arrived on the scene in 2022 eager to draw attention to his sport , both through TikTok and his performances. It’s safe to say he’s succeeded in both. In April, the 19-year-old wrapped up his freshman season at Michigan by winning the all-around and two event titles at the NCAA championships. Six months later, in Belgium, he broke through on a higher level. Richard left the world championships with a pair of bronze medals — in the team and the all-around. Those marked the first medals for U.S. men in those events at a global championship since 2014 and 2012, respectively. And Richard’s high-flying ways aren’t limited to his stunning floor exercise and high bar routines. His creative gymnastics challenge videos have earned him a following of 645,000 and counting on TikTok.

(L-R0 Valarie Allman and Laulauga Tausaga-Collins pose with their U.S. flags.

Laulauga Tausaga-Collins, Track & Field

Talk about owning the moment. Tausaga-Collins unleashed the biggest throw of her life — by far — to become the first U.S. woman to win a discus world title. The Hawaii-born, California-raised thrower missed the Tokyo Olympics and finished 12th of 12 in the final of last year’s world championships, both while battling back injuries. At this year’s worlds in August in Hungary, Tausaga-Collins sat in fifth place with two throws to go. That’s when she broke out for a 69.49-meter throw, beating her personal best by nearly four meters. Her U.S. teammate and the defending Olympic champ, Valarie Allman, was just behind Tausaga-Collins in second (69.23 m).

Sam Watson celebrating and putting his arms up in the air

Joe Kusumoto

Sam Watson, Climbing

Speed climbing will debut as an Olympic medal event in Paris after being rolled into a combined event in 2021 in Tokyo. That’s good news for Watson, who at 17 is already one of the fastest in the history of the sport. In April, Watson, of Southlake, Texas, scaled the 15-meter wall in 5.02 seconds to establish a new U.S. record. The only thing missing for Watson was a climb like that when it counts most, in a final. He finally put everything together at the Pan American Games in October in Santiago, where he not only won the gold medal but also clinched his first Olympic berth.

Joscelyn Roberson of Team United States competes on Floor Exercise during Women's Qualifications on Day Two of the FIG Artistic Gymnastics World Championships at the Antwerp Sportpaleis on October 01, 2023 in Antwerp, Belgium.

Getty Images

Joscelyn Roberson, Gymnastics

The world championships didn’t end quite how Roberson had hoped — a “freak injury” in warmups kept her out of the team and vault finals. But just about everything prior in 2023 was a dream for the 17-year-old from Texarkana, Texas. Following a switch to Simone Biles’ gym last year, Roberson enjoyed a breakthrough winter racking up medals at competitions in Germany, Egypt and Colombia. The powerful tumbler is particularly strong on floor and vault, the latter of which she won at the U.S. championships. In only in her second year at the senior elite level, Roberson showed she can hang with the best in the world.

Jeromie Meyer throws the ball during the Men's Wheelchair Basketball final at the 2023 Parapan American Games in Santiago, Chile.

Joe Kusumoto Team USA

Jeromie Meyer, Wheelchair Basketball

Make no mistake, the U.S. men’s wheelchair basketball team is still a veteran-led group. If the team is to win a third consecutive Paralympic gold medal next year, though, it’ll need key contributions from players like Meyer, of Woodbine, Iowa, who proved to be a key contributor off the bench this year. Meyer closed out his first senior tournament with Team USA by dropping in five points in a 67–66 win over Great Britain to secure the world title in June in Dubai, UAE. He was the only bench player to record a point. Meyer was at it again at the Parapan Am Games, scoring seven points and grabbing three rebounds in the final as Team USA thumped Colombia to secure the gold medal and a spot in the Paris Games.

Chrös McDougall has covered the Olympic and Paralympic Movement for TeamUSA.org since 2009 on behalf of Red Line Editorial, Inc. He is based in Minneapolis-St. Paul.

Filed Under: Athlete Spotlight, Climbing, Gymnastics, Martial Arts, Olympics, Para-Cycling, Paralympics, Rugby, Skateboarding, Track and Field

MoCo Native Dominique Dawes Becomes First Gymnast Inducted Into Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame

November 14, 2023 by Tara S

The MOCOShow

The first gymnast in the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame (MDSAHOF), Montgomery County native Dominique Dawes, 46, won 15 U.S. Championships between 1991 and 1996.

Per the MDSAHOF: Born in Silver Spring, MD, she also broke ground as the first African-American gymnast to ever qualify for and compete in an Olympics and in 1996 became the first African-American to win an individual medal in Olympic gymnastics with a bronze medal in the floor exercises. A three-time Olympian, Dawes was a member of the “Magnificent Seven,” the first American team to win gold in women’s gymnastics at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. “Awesome Dawesome” retired after the Sydney Games in 2000 (team bronze) and graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park in 2002, appeared on Broadway in a revival of “Grease” and became an advocate for young women in sports.

She served as president of the Women’s Sports Federation from 2004 to 2006, was appointed by President Obama to join football star Drew Brees as co-chair of the President’s Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition in 2010 and in 2020 opened the Dominique Dawes Gymnastics & Ninja Academy in Montgomery County, MD, to create a healthy and nurturing environment for all children, including her four children, two of them twins. She has two locations- in Clarksburg and in Rockville.

Dawes is a member of the International Gymnastics Hall of Fame (2009) and USA Olympic Hall of Fame (with the Magnificent Seven in 2008). She became the first woman to be inducted into the Maryland State Athletic Hall of Fame this past week.

Filed Under: Gymnastics

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