Simone Biles Wins Gymnastics Classic After Competing Against Suni Lee and Gabby Douglas for First Time

Simone Biles is the champion — again!

Just over seven months after becoming the most decorated gymnast of all time, the 27-year-old Texan took home another title on Saturday, May 18 at the 2024 Core Hydration Gymnastics Classic in Hartford, Connecticut. She earned an impressive all-around score of 59.500, surpassing her score at last year’s classic (59.1).

Biles dominated the competition, which also saw the return of Suni Lee and Gabby Douglas — the first time three former Olympic all-around gold medalists have competed in the same event, according to NBC Sports.

Tokyo Olympic floor gold medalist Jade Carey and team silver medalist Jordan Chiles also competed, as did Shilese Jones, Skye Blakely, Kayla DiCello, Joscelyn Roberson, Leanne Wong and Lexi Zeiss.

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According to USA Today, Biles’ scores for each event never dipped below 14.55. She posted her highest scores on vault and floor, scoring a 15.600 on her self-proclaimed Biles II move on vault. For the first time since the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, she also completed a triple twist double somersault on the floor.

“I was happy to get back out there, get through those nerves again, feel that adrenaline,” she told NBC Sports. “I can’t complain about how the first meeting was.”

Jones, 21, cemented her status as a gymnast to watch in Saturday’s competition, finishing a solid second overall, less than two points shy of Biles’ score of 57.650. She even topped Biles on bars with a score of 15.250.

Douglas (28) had a rough night. After competing in only one discipline — bars, where she fell twice, according to Washington Post, and finished with a score of 10.1 — she sat down for a few minutes and then left the floor.

She later withdrew from the competition for no apparent reason. That means the former world all-around silver medalist will not qualify for the national all-around and may not be able to compete in the Olympics for a third time.

Simone Biles performs on beam during the 2024 Core Hydration Classic on May 18, 2024.

Team Nwachukwu/Getty

This match marked one of Douglas’s first returns to a major competition in eight years. Before her appearance at the 2024 American Classic last month, she last competed in 2016, where she won gold at the Rio Olympics.

Meanwhile, Lee completed three events — vault, beam and floor. The 2020 Olympic all-around champion took home the top score on beam and finished with a total score of 40.75, qualifying her for the all-around at the national championships.

For 21-year-old Lee, her participation comes more than a year after she was diagnosed with two different types of kidney disease.

According to USA Gymnastics, 2020 Olympian Chiles — who thrilled fans with her performance on bars — placed third in the all-around with a 55.450. Carey was fourth with a 54.400, and Blakely, 19, finished just ahead of her with a 54.350.

The event also featured injured athletes — 2022 U.S. all-around champion Konnor McClain withdrew from the event after injuring her Achilles while warming up for floor, her coach Courtney McCool Griffeth told NBC Sports. USA Today reported that a 19-year-old LSU athlete left the competition in a wheelchair with tears in her eyes after competing in just one event, the beam. She took overall third place in that discipline.

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The Classic is one of the last preliminary matches before the selection of the American team. One of the next meets, the 2024 Xfinity US Gymnastics Championships, is scheduled for May 30-June 2 in Fort Worth, Texas.

At the conclusion of the competition, USA Gymnastics Teams will be named, and those athletes will compete to compete at the 2024 USA Olympic Team Trials – Gymnastics later in June in Minneapolis.

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Source: HIS Education