Simone Biles will have to clear more space in her trophy case to make room for her latest prize, the American Cup championship.
Over the weekend, Simone lead the women's field at the American Cup with a super high 62.299 ahead of teammate and second place finisher, MyKayla Skinner. Coming in third was Italy's Erika Fasana, who had a pretty fantastic day overall. Simone seems to be well on her way to becoming the Kohei Uchimura of women's gymnastics. She has become, the "Unbeatable."
How did she do it?
Starting with the first rotation, the vault, Simone's place was sealed. While most of her other competitors opted to do a less difficult double twisting yurchenko vault, or a one and a half or a Tsukahara one and a half if your name is Ellie Black and you're from Canada. Simone's vault is an Amanar, which has a start value of 6.3, already giving her a 0.5 advantage over everyone, especially since she get's more height and distance than anyone else and she nearly stuck the landing.
Bars is not her strongest event difficulty wise. But she's even improved on that event, she had a start value of 6.1, giving her a potential 16.100 maximum score. Simone doesn't have the pretty long, lines of a Mustafina or a Kyla Ross, but she's just as clean. Obviously, there were a couple of places for judges to take deductions, specifically, those flexed feet on her Tkatchev and a couple of leg separations. But so so clean. I re-reviewed her bar routine and she's hit her handstands.
Where she has the biggest advantage is floor exercise. Simone has a ridiculous 6.8 start value, mostly because her tumbling is just out of this world. No, seriously, it's ridiculous. She opens with a double layout full out, then does her signature skill, the Biles, a double layout half out, a double double tuck and a full in for her dismount. Since floor connection values are super hard to come by, the floor code has made it so you have to do the most difficult everything just to get a decent score. Most gymnasts will have maybe one or two of those difficult skills.
While others made mistakes, Simone remained as cool and calm as a cucumber.
How long will Simone's winning streak last?
Well, in 2013, her first year as a senior, she won the all-around at the City of Jesolo Trophy. She lost out on the American Cup title only because she fell on beam. She did however, go on to win the national championships that year, then won her first world all-around title and took home another gold medal on the vault as well as a bronze medal on the beam and a silver on the vault. In 2014, she won the all-around again, and won four more gold medals.
Can anyone else compete? Generally, unless Simone falls on an event or becomes injured and has to downgrade then no. All though she may be unbeatable at the moment, she is human and is not infallible.
Over the weekend, Simone lead the women's field at the American Cup with a super high 62.299 ahead of teammate and second place finisher, MyKayla Skinner. Coming in third was Italy's Erika Fasana, who had a pretty fantastic day overall. Simone seems to be well on her way to becoming the Kohei Uchimura of women's gymnastics. She has become, the "Unbeatable."
How did she do it?
Starting with the first rotation, the vault, Simone's place was sealed. While most of her other competitors opted to do a less difficult double twisting yurchenko vault, or a one and a half or a Tsukahara one and a half if your name is Ellie Black and you're from Canada. Simone's vault is an Amanar, which has a start value of 6.3, already giving her a 0.5 advantage over everyone, especially since she get's more height and distance than anyone else and she nearly stuck the landing.
Bars is not her strongest event difficulty wise. But she's even improved on that event, she had a start value of 6.1, giving her a potential 16.100 maximum score. Simone doesn't have the pretty long, lines of a Mustafina or a Kyla Ross, but she's just as clean. Obviously, there were a couple of places for judges to take deductions, specifically, those flexed feet on her Tkatchev and a couple of leg separations. But so so clean. I re-reviewed her bar routine and she's hit her handstands.
Where she has the biggest advantage is floor exercise. Simone has a ridiculous 6.8 start value, mostly because her tumbling is just out of this world. No, seriously, it's ridiculous. She opens with a double layout full out, then does her signature skill, the Biles, a double layout half out, a double double tuck and a full in for her dismount. Since floor connection values are super hard to come by, the floor code has made it so you have to do the most difficult everything just to get a decent score. Most gymnasts will have maybe one or two of those difficult skills.
While others made mistakes, Simone remained as cool and calm as a cucumber.
How long will Simone's winning streak last?
Well, in 2013, her first year as a senior, she won the all-around at the City of Jesolo Trophy. She lost out on the American Cup title only because she fell on beam. She did however, go on to win the national championships that year, then won her first world all-around title and took home another gold medal on the vault as well as a bronze medal on the beam and a silver on the vault. In 2014, she won the all-around again, and won four more gold medals.
Can anyone else compete? Generally, unless Simone falls on an event or becomes injured and has to downgrade then no. All though she may be unbeatable at the moment, she is human and is not infallible.
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