• RIO 2016

By Sportsmanila Staff 

SAN JOSE — After making her first Olympic team, Simone Biles was happy and relieved. Both are to be expected, but it’s the latter emotion that reveals most about a gymnast who has been the best in the world for the last three years.

For Biles and Aimee Boorman, her longtime coach, getting on the team was the focus and ultimate goal. For everyone else, it was a mere formality for a gymnast who will be favored to win multiple gold medals in Rio de Janeiro. “A little bit of both, because for the past three years it’s been a dream,” Biles says. “But once it comes true, you don’t even believe it. It’s kind of like a fairy tale, but you have to keep going, and I know this is just the beginning.”

For those who measure gymnastics success by what they do in the Games every four years, it is that. But for anyone who has seen Biles dominate the sport in the years since the London Games, it’s merely a continuation of a career that has put her in the conversation for the greatest of all time.

Biles have won the all-around in the last three world championships and the last four U.S. championships. Along the way, she has collected a record 10 worlds gold medals and 14 worlds medals overall.

She has won every all-around competition she has entered since claiming that first U.S. title in August 2013, a string of 11 events.

Despite that, Biles and Boorman have managed to keep things normal for the 19-year-old. She turned pro in July 2015, and her family has opened the World Champions Centre near their home in spring, Texas.

Nike, Hershey’s and Core Power sponsor her. Zac Efron, her celebrity crush, and JJ Watt have tweeted her.

But she still sees herself as just Simone and acts that way.

“I love how even though she’s been so successful and she always wins, she still is always so determined that even if she has a tough day in the gym, it really matters to her. It’s like every day for her really counts,” says Aly Raisman, who joins Biles on the Rio team. “She’s very serious about it, and she’s very determined.”

In building her résumé, Biles has combined unprecedented difficulty with near flawless execution. Because the start values of her routines are higher than anyone else in the sport, she starts with about a two-point advantage against her competition.

In a sport often decided by tenths of points, Biles leaves herself room for mistakes yet seldom makes them.

In last year’s world championships, a slight bobble in the balance beam final was noteworthy. She still won gold. In the U.S. Olympic trials in July, she had errors on balance beam both days and still won by more than two points.

It’s her tumbling, air awareness and need to not get bored that keep Biles trying new and more difficult skills. Boorman caused a stir by posting video of Biles doing a double twisting double tuck off the beam, a dismount so difficult no one actually does it in competition.

Raisman marveled that she once saw Biles learn three in a month, unheard-of mastery in a sport where muscle memory is critical.

“She’s kind of like Supergirl. It’s really impressive everything that she does, and it’s like easy for her,” Raisman says. “It’s not normal to be able to do your routines and then have the energy and have time to, oh, ‘I’ll just try these skills after.’ I don’t have the energy to do that.”

Biles has more than once received a 9.9 execution score on vault, putting her as close to perfect as any gymnast has been since the scoring system changed in 2006.

In fact, it’s on vault where she has become more formidable.

In last year’s world championships, she helped the team to a gold medal before winning the all-around, balance beam and floor. On vault, she took bronze and vowed to improve.

She does an Amanar, which is a roundoff onto the board followed by a 21/2 twisting layout back flip and one of the most difficult vaults being competed today, as well as anyone else in the world.

“The amazing gymnastics that she’s shown us, as a coach and gymnast, I don’t get tired of watching that vault,” says Kim Zmeskal Burdette, a former world champion and Olympic medalist who coaches Ragan Smith, an alternate on the team. “We’re in a practice and we’re clapping for her. There should not be pressure on her to do something more to prove to anybody.”

There is little more to prove, but in a sport that draws so much attention from the Games, Olympic golds are expected.

The Americans will be heavily favored to win team gold again, and Biles might be even more of a shoo-in for all-around gold. Three event golds are not only possible but also maybe even likely.

After three years of managing her gymnast’s meteoric rise, Boorman is confident Biles has the ability to handle those expectations.

Whether she’s the greatest gymnast of all time or if she needs Olympic medals to get there isn’t something they’ve thought about. They’ve been focusing on getting on the team and on doing their job in Rio.

It’s up to the rest of us to debate her place in the sport, but come mid-August, Biles might settle that herself.

“Some of us older Olympians are talking and going, ‘We think we’re at the physical limit,’” says Mary Lou Retton, the 1984 Olympic all-around gold medalist. “There’s a cap somewhere, and then here comes Simone who is just bouncing out of these incredibly different skills and we’re joking she should have to compete with the guys. She’s so good. She pushes it. She’s just special. The best gymnast that I’ve ever seen in my lifetime.

“She’s going to have that Olympic title. She’s just got to show up. It’s hers.”