Stuttgart (Germany) (AFP)

Five out of five: the irresistible Simone Biles won her fifth world title in the all-around competition, the sixteenth overall, on Thursday in Stuttgart, Germany, less than ten months before the 2020 Olympics.

At 22, Biles never stops pushing the limits of the records she already holds: never before her, a gymnast had been crowned world champion more than three times in the all-around competition (the Japanese Kohei Uchimura has six titles), and neither had a gymnast ever won more than twelve world titles.

And the American champion relies on one of the few that still escapes, the absolute record of world medals, established by the legend Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo in the 1990s (23): here it is now only one unit (22).

It should not survive the coming weekend, as the four-time Olympic champion (all-around, floor, jump and team) will have multiple chances to match, and even surpass it over the next four finals. apparatus for which she is qualified, those at the jump and the bars Saturday, and those at the beam and the ground Sunday.

- Biles: "I wonder how I do it" -

"It's true that it's a lot, I feel like it's not me and I sometimes wonder how I do it," wonders Biles.

"Sometimes I would like to be able to get out of my body to see myself, because I feel like I'm crazy," she imagines, "sometimes I watch videos afterwards to ask me how did I do that. "

On Thursday, Biles scored 58.999 to win her second world title of the week, 48 hours behind the team, two points ahead of her closest competitor, China's Tang Xijing (56.899). The Russian Angelina Melnikova (56,399) completes the podium.

The small Texan bomb began its contest drum beat by an excellent jump, rewarded with a 15,233. Then she kept up the pace, to score the best total of the final on three of the four apparatus, jumping so, beam (14.633) and ground (14.400). At the bars, the only one that still resists her, she got "only" the third note (14,733).

© 2019 AFP