Stuttgart (Germany) (AFP)
The undisputed queen of gymnastics Simone Biles earned her sixteenth world title by dominating the all-around competition for the fifth time on Thursday in Stuttgart, Germany, less than ten months from the 2020 Olympics.
At 22, the American champion continues to expand her record collection of world crowns, and, with now 22 medals at this level, is now only one unit of the absolute record established by the legend Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo (23) .
Biles totaled 58.999. China's Tang Xijing (56,899) and Russia's Angelina Melnikova (56,399) complete the podium.
Melanie De Jesus Dos Santos (19) ranks only twentieth (53,566). The triple European champion (general competition in 2019, ground in 2018 and 2019), who aspired to become the first French gymnast to reach the world podium of the all-around competition, lost all hope by falling twice on uneven bars , which earned him a redhibitory 11,933.
No misadventure on the other hand for Biles. The small Texan bombing started with a great jump, winning a 15.233, and kept pace, with the best total of the final on three of the four apparatuses (except bars).
Biles becomes the first five-time world gymnast in the all-around competition. On the men's side, only Japan's Kohei Uchimura has done better, with six world titles.
With this new title, his second in the competition after the team won Tuesday with the Americans, Biles, already the most successful gymnast in history on the world stage, based on the medal record of Scherbo (23).
The four-time defending Olympic champion will have many chances to match and even surpass her: she still has to play in the four apparatus finals on the German mats, on the jump and uneven bars on Saturday, on the beam and on the floor. Sunday.
"DJDS", she is still engaged in two, floor and beam. French women's gymnastics has not been on a world podium for ten years (Dufournet bronze jump).
© 2019 AFP