African American

sheshe2

(87,905 posts) Tue Jul 19, 2016, 08:23 PM Jul 2016

Meet Simone Biles, America’s New Gymspiration [View all]

If you don’t know Simone Biles’ name yet, you will by the end of this summer.

The 19-year-old Texas gymnast is one of Team USA’s best bets for multiple gold medals in Rio. She’s the anchor of the women’s gymnastics team and the first woman to win three back-to-back World Gymnastics Championships. Some are even calling her the most talented gymnast of all time ― and she hasn’t even set foot in an Olympic arena yet. Between NBC’s wall-to-wall coverage in August, as well as Biles’ various endorsement deals, you’re going to see a lot of her this summer.

Biles’ performances in Rio will no doubt inspire thousands of little girls to beg their parents for gymnastics classes. And while most of us can’t reasonably aspire to Olympic gymnast levels of strength and flexibility, she’ll probably inspire a few adults to lace up our sneakers or pick up a few weights, too. If you’re having trouble making finding the motivation to work out today ― or any day ― Biles might be just the gymspiration you need.

There’s a reason Biles is considered a surefire bet for so many medals this year. It’s not just that she’s a polished performer, with rock solid sticks and beautiful lines; it’s that her strength and her dynamism are pushing the sport forward. She has an immensely difficult tumbling pass named after her, a double back layout with a half twist. If you’re the first person to complete a new trick in competition, you get that trick named after you forever. This is the Biles.

Aaand, once more, for good measure, but this time with a split jump thrown in at the end because, you know, Simone Biles.

Here’s the hardest vault, the Produnova. It’s a handspring into a double front somersault, and only a handful of women in the world can do it, and no one who’s competing right now can land it in competition without a deep squat and their butt touching their ground. It has a difficult score of 7.0, meaning the maximum score you can get is a 17.0.