Los Angeles (AFP)
The American Olympic selections in gymnastics, in Saint-Louis (Missouri), ended Sunday with an easy victory, and therefore the unsurprisingly qualifying champion Simone Biles for the Tokyo Olympics.
Although she fell off the beam on Sunday and was overall far from her - excellent - usual level, Biles, 24, never really doubted, she who won four gold medals and one of bronze in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
Her score of 118,098 points earned her one of two automatic qualifiers for Tokyo, where she will be one of the headliners in American sport.
In the end, she is 2.66 points ahead of Suni Lee, who finished with 115.832 points and will make her Olympic debut at 18.
Despite her overall performance below her usual standards, on Sunday, the spectators of the huge Dome at America's Center still stood up to greet the small champion of 1m42 at the end of her final performance in the event at the ground.
“Having a standing ovation was so nice,” admitted the native of Columbus, Ohio.
The other qualifiers are Jordan Chiles and Grace McCallum in the Olympic team, as well as Jade Carey and MyKayla Skinner in the individual events, all of whom are competing in their first Games.
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- "Rediscover the love of sport" -
Biles, one of many gymnasts sexually abused by former Olympic team doctor Larry Nassar in a scandal that rocked American gymnastics, said it took a while for her to rediscover her love of the gym. sport.
“Everything I've been through with the federation, rediscovering the love of sport, just being Simone, it's been a long way until now,” she explained.
“The path has been surreal, five years later and we are starting again,” she told NBC.
"I'm old, I feel like I have a lot of wisdom (…), so I just want everyone to stay cool, calm and collected."
Biles, 24, will be the oldest American female gymnast to take part in the Games since Annia Hatch, 26, and Mohini Bhardwaj, 25, at the 2004 Olympics.
© 2021 AFP