The 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships are here, and Simone Biles has won a sixth all-around title.

Two days after Biles and Team USA won gold in the team competition, the 26-year-old became the most decorated gymnast in the history of the sport. With her individual gold medal, she has won 34 Olympic or world championship medals in her career, surpassing the previous record of 33 set by Belarusian men’s gymnast Vitaly Scherbo.

Already, Biles had etched her name in the record books by landing the Yurchenko double pike in the qualifying session. She is the first gymnast to do so in international competition, so the move will now be named the “Biles II.” And with the team win Wednesday, she became the only gymnast ever to be a part of five gold-medal winning teams at worlds.

On Friday, she added to her success in Antwerp, Belgium, winning her 21st gold medal at the world championships, and her 27th overall.

The U.S. women have won gold in the team competition in seven consecutive world championships, an all-time record. Shilese Jones, Leanne Wong, Skye Blakely and Joscelyn Roberson competed alongside Biles, accumulating a score of 167.729 points and beating out second-place Brazil (165.530).

Biles also is qualified to compete in all four event finals on Saturday and Sunday.

2023 World Gymnastics Championships: How to watch

  • Wednesday, Oct. 4 – Women’s Team Final
    • 1:30 p.m. ET on Peacock
  • Friday, Oct. 6 – Women’s All-Around Final*
    • 1:30 p.m. ET on Peacock
  • Saturday, Oct. 7 – Apparatus Finals, Day 1
    • 8 a.m. ET on Peacock
  •  Sunday, Oct. 8 – Apparatus Finals, Day 2
    • 8 a.m. ET on Peacock; 2 p.m. ET highlights on CNBC

*Note: The women’s all-around final also will be re-aired at noon Saturday, Oct. 14, on NBC.

Simone Biles continues to make history, making a record sixth world championships roster for the U.S. gymnastics team.

The 26-year-old earned an all-around total of 55.7000 at the selection camp, which put her ahead of Shilese Jones and Sky Blakely for the top spot on the roster. She becomes the only U.S. woman to qualify for six world championship teams. Admittedly, though, her performance to make the team was not her best.

“I feel like everybody was nervous [Tuesday] — not just me,” Biles told reporters Wednesday. “And I don’t know why. But it was just rough. So today was a lot better.”

Biles is joined by three gold medal winners from the 2022 world championships – Jones, Blakely and Leanne Wong. Additionally, 17-year-old Joscelyn Robertson was named to the roster.

The event marks a return to Antwerp, Belgium, for Biles, who won the first of her five all-around titles there at just 16 years old. In an Instagram story post following her qualification, she wrote, “Back to where it all started, see you soon Belgium.”

It’s been a decade, but Biles will return to Antwerp – this time looking to become the most decorated gymnast in history.

Currently, Biles has 32 combined Olympic and world championship medals – 25 of which have come at the world championships. She’s currently tied with Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union, who retired in 1966, for the most medals ever at the two events, but Biles could break that tie with a medal at worlds.

The next major event after the 2023 world championships will be 2024 Paris Olympics, and Biles wants to compete for the U.S. at another Summer Games. But she’s taking it one step at a time, and that now includes a trip to the world championships.

“Everything we’re doing leading up to this next Games, or whatever, is very intentional,” she said earlier this month. “I think I have to take care of myself a little bit more and listen to my body and making sure I’m making time for the important things in my life, rather than before it was just like go, go, go and then making time after.

“This time around, it’s being intentional, going to therapy, making sure everything is aligned so I can do the best in the gym and be like, a good wife, good daughter, good friend — all the good things.”

Simone Biles has her sights set on the Paris Olympics in 2024.

The seven-time Olympic medal winner, who returned to competition in August, told the “Today” show that the 2024 Olympics in Paris is “the path I would love to go.”

Following the U.S. Classic and U.S. Championships in August, Biles remained mum about the upcoming Summer Games. But she spoke with “Today” host Hoda Kotb about her goals, which include Paris.

“If I had $5 in my hand and I was going to Vegas and I’m like, ‘I’m going to bet on whether Simone will go to the Olympics or not,'” Kotb asked, “where would I put my five bucks, the yay or the nay?”

Biles responded: “I wouldn’t mind if you put it in the yay section.”

The five-time world all-around champion is likely to compete at this year’s world championships after taking home the all-around title at the U.S. competition. Still, she’s remaining down to earth amid her return to gymnastics.

“I think we have to be a little bit more cautious about how we do things. So everything that we’re doing leading up to this next Games or whatever is very intentional,” Biles said. “We’ve kind of been playing it on the down low this time, making sure mentally and physically are both intact. So I think it’ll be different, but it’ll be good.”

Biles made headlines at the Tokyo Olympics when she had to withdraw from several events due to the “twisties,” which causes gymnasts to lose track of where they are in the air. Her absence sparked discussions about athletes’ physical and mental health, and Biles wants to continue to prioritize both as she approaches a potential third Olympic appearance.

“I think I have to take care of myself a little bit more and listen to my body and making sure that I’m making time for the important things in my life rather than before,” Biles said. “It was just like, go, go, go, and, then, making time after.

“This time around, it’s like being intentional, going to therapy, making sure everything is aligned so that I can do the best in the gym and be, like, a good wife, a good daughter, a good friend, all the good things.”

And while Biles’ return to the sport has looked easy, it hasn’t always been, she admitted.

“There were times when I would come in the gym and I’d be like, ‘You know what? No, I don’t think this is going to work,'” she said. “And then I was like, ‘No, I’m going to give it another day. I’m going to give it another day.’ So I think just showing up and putting that work and that effort in really, really came to play.

“So as long as I showed up for another day and kept putting that work in, then [any doubts] kind of went down and dwindled. So, right now, I’m feeling really good. I think I still sometimes doubt myself, but I’m still doing my therapy and making sure everything’s aligned well.”

Simone Biles’ return to gymnastics has made it seem like she never even left at all.

On Sunday, the 26-year-old won her unprecedented eighth U.S. all-around gymnastics title. She capped it off with what coach Laurent Landi called “the best floor routine I’ve ever seen her do.”

“Every time I come out here, I feel like I’m in a fever dream,” Biles said of the meet, her first major competition since her return. “I feel like nothing’s real. I knew I did a good floor routine, but as soon as I got off and saw the score, I was like, ‘Damn, I need to see that routine.’ Because I wasn’t sure.”

Through it all, Biles has made gymnastics look easy. She landed another Yurchenko double pike on Friday, continuing her reign as the only woman ever to so much as attempt it in competition. She earned a 9.8 execution score.

“It’s not normal. She is not normal,” Landi said.

And Biles is doing this all at the age of 26. In gymnastics terms, she is redefining what the sport can look like. Most gymnasts at 26 aren’t competing at their best, like Biles is.

She’s approaching the sport with a different mindset, choosing not to share her goals and instead to “be at peace” while taking it “one thing at a time.”

“I like to keep (my goals) personal, just so that I know what I’m aiming for,” Biles said. “I think it’s better that way. I’m trying to move a little bit differently this year than I have in the past. I think it’s working so far, so I’m going to keep it secretive.”

That peace will take her to the world championships next month, where she’ll attempt to add to her 25 world championship medals – 18 of which are gold. But for Biles, she’s just happy to be back in the thick of competition.

“I just didn’t think I was going to be back here competing,” she said. “I’m in the moment. But it doesn’t feel real for some reason. I just, seriously, can’t believe I’m out here competing again. I’m proud of myself for that.”

Simone Biles is officially back.

At the Core Hydration Classics in suburban Chicago on Saturday night, she looked as comfortable as she ever has on the mat. Competing in her first gymnastics event since the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, Biles easily won the all-around title as well as the gold for vault, beam and floor. On the uneven bars, often considered her weakest event, she took second.

Between events, the four-time Olympic gold medalist danced with her teammates and did a synchronized celebration with Jordan Chiles to celebrate her vault. According to Biles, though, looks were deceiving.

“I thought I was going to s–t bricks! I was very nervous. So at least if it looked like I was having fun, that’s good. But I think after every routine, it got a little bit easier. And usually my power events, vault and floor, before I go in, I’m like, ‘OK, I know I’m gonna make these,'” Biles said.

“I think this was the complete opposite in trainings. I’ve been making all my bar sets, all my beam sets. So that’s kind of a complete 180 for me. So to get out there on floor and vault, I was like, ‘Ooh, how’s this gonna go?’ I’ve been making them, but not as confident. So getting back in that groove and just having fun and remembering that I’m here for myself.”

Finding confidence is a big part of the Classics. Biles wasn’t the only gymnast who used this event to find a way back to the floor before the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Suni Lee, Chiles and Jade Carey — all Olympic medalists who have moved on to NCAA competition — competed to rediscover some comfort at the elite level again. Leanne Wong, an alternate for the 2021 Olympics, has been competing at the college level, as well. She took second at Classics, as she vies for a spot on the United States’ 2024 Olympic team.

What happens next?

Gymnasts will head to San Jose for the U.S. Championships at the end of August. That event will not only include the gymnasts who posted qualifying scores from Classics. Shilese Jones, who helped the U.S. team win gold at the World Championships in 2022 while also taking silver in the all-around and uneven bars, will be competing at the U.S. Championships because of her accomplishments at Worlds.

What does this mean for Paris?

Technically, the Classics the year before the Olympics don’t mean anything when it comes to choosing who will compete for the U.S. in Paris. However, since it’s a qualifier for the U.S. Championships, it’s not an event gymnasts take lightly. It’s a chance for them to get judged on their routines and figure out what needs to be tweaked as they move forward in the Olympic cycle. If the Olympics are the peak of a mountain range, think of the Classics as the foothills.

img
Joscelyn Roberson placed third in the all-around at the U.S. Classic on Saturday. (Alex Goodlett/Getty Images)

Beyond the established names, who else should we look out for?

For gymnasts who have already won Olympic medals, the Classics were about finding their footing again and building confidence heading into the U.S. Championships and team selection camp for Worlds. For other gymnasts, this competition was about establishing themselves as a real threat to make the World Championship team and, eventually, the Olympic team.

Here are three American gymnasts to watch.

Joscelyn Roberson

When you see Roberson compete, Shawn Johnson’s powerful tumbling and vaults will come to mind. Roberson trains at the same gym as Biles and Chiles, and holds her own with Olympic teammates. She took third in the all-around on Saturday, and tied for second on floor, tied for third on beam and placed second on vault. Earlier this year, Roberson won medals at multiple international events. She’s committed to Arkansas for 2025, so she will continue to train with an eye on the Olympics.

Skye Blakeley

At just 18, Blakeley has an impressive resume. She was part of the gold-medal winning 2022 World Championships team, and she’s won medals at the Pan-American Championships. On Saturday, she tied for second on bars and third on beam. Though she’s committed to Florida, she is holding off on college to focus on Olympic training.

Kaliya Lincoln

The LSU-bound gymnast showed she has the talent to compete with the best the U.S. has to offer. On floor exercise and vault, Lincoln can fly while still keeping perfect form in the air. With extra training at LSU and WOGA, her home gym in Texas, Lincoln has the skills to make a run at the Olympic team.

Maggie Hendricks is a contributing writer for Just Women’s Sports. She also covers women’s sports for Bally Sports. Follow her on Twitter @maggiehendricks.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — When Simone Biles was introduced to the crowd at the beginning of the Core Hydration Classic on Saturday night, she ran out, waved to the crowd, and then paused, looking around the floor exercise mat for some guidance. She wasn’t sure where she was supposed to stand as the rest of the competitors were announced. A fellow gymnast waved her over, Biles laughed, and she headed to the edge of the mat.

It was the last time she didn’t look at home on the gymnastics floor. Biles scored a 59.100 to win her first all-around competition since the 2021 Olympic Trials. Starting on the uneven bars, Biles scored a 14.000. Just before her dismount, Biles lost her form and had to muscle back into position before doing her full-twisting double back.

The break on bars was the biggest mistake Biles had on Saturday night. On balance beam and floor exercise, she was steady and aggressive, just as the four-time Olympic gold medalist has always been. For vault, Biles showed she was just as capable of doing the high-flying Yurchenko double pike as she was in 2021. Though she landed off-center, she scored a massive 15.400 thanks to the vault’s difficulty.

The sold-out NOW Arena in suburban Chicago erupted in cheers for every move Biles made, whether it was warming up a vault or dancing with her friend and teammate Jordan Chiles. They chanted her name as she spoke with the media, and stayed well after the meet was over to show their appreciation.

“I think what shocks me the most is, everyone’s so supportive, like in the crowd, all of the girls, all of the signs, like after everything that transpired in Tokyo, and obviously, you know, they ‘at me’ in all those tweets and stuff, so I get a lot of that stuff. But the amount of outpouring love and support that I had on Twitter, on Instagram, and in the arena was just really shocking,” she said.

“And surprising to me that they still have so much belief in me, they still love me, and it just makes my heart warm, because it’s nice to come out here and have all that support, especially in a time like this where I was, like really nervous to compete again. But everyone, I can’t ask for more.”

The Classics were Biles’ first competition back since she pulled out of the Olympic team competition with “twisties,” a type of mental block gymnasts sometimes deal with that prevents them from knowing where they are in the air.

Since then, she’s spoken out on the importance of mental health for athletes. In her personal life, Biles married Green Bay Packers safety Jonathan Owens. She returned to training in 2022. According to her coach Cecille Landi, Biles stepped up her training after the wedding this spring.

“I had dinner with her, and it was this year and she told me she really wanted to get a chance to do it. After that, I would say after the wedding. Once everything was over, then we saw a shift in her training and commitment to being back,” Landi said on Friday.

Competing at the Classics was Biles’ first step back on the road to the 2024 Paris Olympics.

With her win Saturday, she qualified for the U.S. championships in San Jose at the end of August. Then, the country’s top gymnasts will take part in a selection camp to decide who will represent the United States at the world championships in Antwerp in October. She joked when asked whether she’s thinking about her plans for the Olympics.

“Right now, I think I should just embrace what happened today. Be happy for me, for my teammates. We’ll go into championships in a couple of weeks and work on those tweaks that we had today, but I’m in a really good spot and who knows? I’m not gonna think so far ahead,” Biles said.

“It’s just like when you get married, they ask you when you’re having a baby. You come to Classics, and they’re asking you about the Olympics. I think we’re just trying to take it one step at a time.”

Biles wasn’t the only star to make a big step back to competition at Classics. Sunisa Lee, the 2021 Olympic All-Around champion, did the vault and beam. After Lee finished on the beam, her first event back at the elite level since dealing with a kidney condition, she hugged her trainer and sobbed. She said on Friday that her biggest goal was to qualify for the U.S. championships, and she did just that with a 14.500 on beam and a 13.500 on vault.

“I think it went really well tonight. I’m super proud of myself for pushing. There were times when thought I wouldn’t be able to do this, but I definitely got over the fear and the doubt. I thought, I’m just going to put myself on the floor, let myself have fun. I think that’s exactly what I did,” Lee said after the meet.

Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles, 2021 Olympians, already qualified for the U.S. championships because they were on the 2022 world championship team that won gold. Still, they competed at Classics to help prepare them for the elite season. Since the Olympics, both have been competing at the college level, with Carey at Oregon State and Chiles at UCLA. Carey scored a 13.900 on beam, and Chiles scored a 13.900 on bars and 12.800 on beam.

Maggie Hendricks is a contributing writer for Just Women’s Sports. She also covers women’s sports for Bally Sports. Follow her on Twitter @maggiehendricks.

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. — Sunisa Lee walked out to the floor for podium training for the Core Hydration Classic on Friday carrying a giant backpack. Before she could take too many steps towards the competition areas, she was greeted by Jordan Chiles, her 2021 Olympic teammate, with a giant hug. Chiles’ infectious enthusiasm was apparent as she ran up to Lee, who is taking baby steps back to the sport where she won Olympic all-around gold in Tokyo.

“[It felt] so good. Jordan is one of the closest people to me. So to see her back out here and to just be back out and competing with her is so fun,” Lee said during training for the U.S. Classic, where many Team USA hopefuls are competing a year before the 2024 Olympics. That group includes Simone Biles, who is returning to the mat for the first time since the Tokyo Olympics, where she sat out of multiple events while dealing with the “twisties.”

The last time casual Olympic fans saw Lee, she was celebrating a breakout performance in 2021. She won gold in the all-around, helped the U.S team win silver and took bronze on the uneven bars. Like Biles and Nastia Liukin, Lee competed on “Dancing with the Stars,” where she finished fifth.

From there, Lee headed to Auburn to compete for the Tigers, as part of the first crop of Olympic athletes who were able to take advantage of NIL rules that allowed her to earn money after the Olympics and still compete in college.

Lee excelled in her first season at Auburn, drawing record crowds to their meets in 2022. She won an NCAA title on balance beam and took second in the all-around. NCAA gymnastics tends to focus more on the team outcomes. And between conference events and dual meets, collegiate gymnasts just compete more, which

“[NCAAs] definitely helped my consistency and a lot of like the mental side, because I feel like today I was coming in and I was really happy,” Lee said. “But when I got back up on the podium, and I was like worked up at first and then I was pretty calm, like recalling back to college, every single day, doing the same elements. And I’ve done this so many times.”

But throughout the 2023 season, Lee missed competitions due to a kidney condition. She announced that the ‘23 season would be her final one in college due to health issues, but she wasn’t moving on from her goal of getting back to the Olympics.

This weekend in Chicago, Lee is working to get back to elite form, even as she deals with a kidney condition that can hamper her training.

“My main goal was to just come here and compete,” Lee said. “I’m not worrying about winning or placing or anything. I just wanted to get back out here. I’m not doing full difficulty at all. I’m not competing floor [exercise].”

During podium training on Friday, Lee looked steady as she trained her balance beam, vault and uneven bars routines. The routines were on the easier side of what she can accomplish, but going viral for her latest skill isn’t the point. Showing the gymnastics world that she is progressing is.

As Lee works with doctors to control her kidney condition, she has to deal with a scaled-back training schedule. Lee told the Olympic Channel that she sometimes wakes up with fingers so swollen that she can’t put on the grips she needs to wear for the uneven bars.

“I am still kind of in and out of the gym. I don’t train as much as I used to. And I definitely don’t take as much time as I like, but whenever I’m having a really good day, I try and take advantage of that and do as much as I can,” Lee said. “Other days, I just work more basics, turns or dance elements because those are important, too.”

When her kidney condition started affecting her in January, Lee was on the exact path she wanted to be on to make it to Paris for the Olympics. Getting healthy enough to try out some of those new skills is part of why she is still pushing for Paris.

“I feel like there’s just a lot more in me. Before all of the diagnoses and all of that stuff, I was doing really good. I feel like I was coming up with new combinations, new skills, like it would have been really cool,” she said. “But that’s definitely what inspired me because I already know that I can do it. So if I just get myself back to that pace, I’ll be right on to the Olympics hopefully.”

Competing at the Classic is the first step that Lee, Chiles, Biles and all of the 2024 Olympic hopefuls will take. This event will qualify gymnasts to the U.S. Championships in San Jose in late August. From there, the top gymnasts will head to a selection camp where the world championship team will be chosen for the event in Belgium in early October.

img
Simone Biles returns to competition this weekend for the first time since the Tokyo Olympics. (Jon Durr/USA TODAY Sports)

For Lee, competing at the Classic is not just a step toward the Olympics, but that step she needs to take to show herself she can compete again, even if she’s not earning the highest scores.

“I’m not gonna be the perfectionist that I was before. It’s just gonna be really hard because, like, a lot of people have that pressure. But, and I think this time, it’s more like I’m coming back, but I also have the [Olympic] title. That kind of gets me a little bit worked up, but ever since I’ve gotten here, I’m just calming myself down. And I’m like, ‘Don’t put any pressure on yourself because we know that you’re not ready.’

“And like, I know what I’m capable of doing right now and it’s not gonna be like what I’m going to do. So I’m just giving myself time.”

Maggie Hendricks is a contributing writer for Just Women’s Sports. She also covers women’s sports for Bally Sports. Follow her on Twitter @maggiehendricks.

Simone Biles got married (again) over the weekend, wedding NFL player Jonathan Owens in Mexico.

The pair first tied the knot at the 1910 Harris County Courthouse in Houston in April, then celebrated their marriage again in Mexico on Saturday.

The Mexico affair was star-filled and much more of a party. Biles told Vogue that because they were getting married in Mexico, they legally had to get married in the U.S. in order for it to be recognized.

“We had to get married ‘legally’ here in the U.S. since our wedding will be a destination wedding,” she said. But that doesn’t mean that the wedding process was all sunshine and rainbows.

“The planning process [for the larger celebration in Cabo] was so much fun in the beginning and then it started getting really stressful,” she continued.

During the service, Biles told Vogue she and Owens tried to keep things light, and that she “fell in love with him all over.” All in all, it was a magical wedding for the two, who got engaged last February in what she captioned “THE EASIEST YES.”

“Whales were jumping out of the water as our ceremony started,” Biles said. “Whale season is over by the way. It sprinkled for two minutes after we got married — which is good luck! — and we had a full moon. It was truly the most magical!”

It’s a cliché in gymnastics that the best in the sport make it look easy. But you understand why it’s a cliché when you watch Trinity Thomas in action.

Her double layout — two backwards flips in the air with her body held straight — is so light that she appears to be flying. She is perfectly poised on the balance beam in competition, landing difficult tumbling and delicate dance moves with the same surefootedness. On bars, her handstands are the straightest; on vault, she appears to have the reflexes of a cat as she flies up and over the table.

It is no surprise that last January, Thomas completed a Gym Slam — perfect 10s, the highest score in college gymnastics, on each of the four apparatuses. She was only the 12th college gymnast ever to nail a Gym Slam, and only the third from the University of Florida, where she competed this winter season as a “super senior.”

As No. 3 Florida prepares to compete in the NCAA championships, beginning with the semifinals on Thursday, Thomas is just a few days away from completing her fifth and final year in college gymnastics. It’s also possibly her final competitive season of a sport that’s been a part of her identity since she was 7. Thomas is nursing a lower leg injury she suffered at NCAA regionals, and there’s been no official announcement on her status for the championships. But if Thomas can compete at all, she will. The NCAA championship, after all, is the reason the 22-year-old came back to Florida.

Thomas won the NCAA all-around title — that is, the highest score for all four apparatuses combined — at the end of the 2022 season, on top of the NCAA vault and floor titles. She was the only gymnast in the country to win All-America First Team honors on all four apparatuses. She was named SEC Freshman of the Year in 2019, has been a Scholastic All-American during all four of her undergraduate seasons at Florida so far and made the SEC Honor Roll in 2023. Thomas was the SEC Gymnast of the Year during her sophomore season in 2020 and received that honor again in 2022 and 2023, becoming the first Florida gymnast to win it twice and one of only two gymnasts throughout the SEC to win it three times. She was the SEC all-around champion at this year’s conference championship. And she was a finalist for the Honda Award (which she won in 2022) again in 2023.

But the reason Thomas has gained name recognition beyond the gymnastics world this year is the perfect 10 record. Thomas has earned 27 10s in her college career thus far: 12 on floor, six on beam, five on bars and four on vault. Only she and Hope Spivey, a 1988 Olympian who competed for Georgia in the early 1990s, have that many. She is one 10 away from tying Kentucky’s Jenny Hansen and UCLA’s Jamie Dantzcher, who each notched 28 10s for the all-time NCAA record, and she is two perfect routines from claiming that record for herself.

So, it was all the more shocking at the regional semifinal in Pittsburgh, where Florida was favored to win and advance to the regional final, to see Thomas stop her floor routine after her first (of three) tumbling passes and mouth to the ESPN camera, “My calf.” She was helped off the floor by a trainer and did not return to competition that night or in the regional final two days later. Florida did advance, but Thomas’ status remains day-to-day for nationals.

It’s also a cliché in gymnastics that the women who do the sport sacrifice everything to make it look that easy, including school, socialization and learning other sports or hobbies. You’ve probably heard an Olympic commentator talk about how a gymnast missed her high school prom in pursuit of medals.

That’s where Thomas will surprise you. Thomas is a graduate student at Florida, where she also received her undergraduate degree in 2022. For her first two seasons at Florida, she maintained her eligibility for the U.S. national gymnastics team, at one point driving from a nighttime college meet straight to a national team camp. In high school, she attended a public school and played varsity sports while training in elite gymnastics for more than 30 hours a week. She went to prom, too, in a Florida-blue gown.

Thomas says that her mom, Tania, told her repeatedly that she should keep her options open as a kid. Not because she didn’t excel at gymnastics (because she always did), but because Tania prioritized fun and exploration over being laser-focused on one sport.

Tania played sports as a child, but they were intertwined with her family and her friendships. Family picnics ended in games; high school track meets ended with friend gatherings outside the stadium. “We always had fun at our sports,” she said.

Tania had never done gymnastics herself, but when Trinity was small, Tania said “she put a hole in my wall.” A neighbor told her to sign Trinity up for gymnastics. She started out in cheerleading and tumbling but was quickly invited to join the gymnastics team at her first gym, Skyline. Tania blanched when she heard about the costs — “$350 just for a warmup,” she recalls, plus another $300 for a competition leotard, and then the fees for the gym and for assessments. “I was like, what did I sign up for?”

When Trinity was little, she would fret about attending birthday parties to which she was invited because she didn’t want to miss gymnastics. “I just wanted to make sure she knew she could miss it,” Tania said.

“I thought that was something that was super important,” Trinity said. “Because sometimes I would make it so serious that it wasn’t fun anymore.”

When Trinity was about 10 years old, she began saying she wanted to quit gymnastics. She told her mother it wasn’t fun. Around the same time, Trinity switched gyms to Artistic Sports Academy in Harrisburg, Pa., where she competed at level 10, the highest level in what was then the Junior Olympic (JO) system and is now known as the USA Gymnastics Developmental Program. The change was a fresh start for Trinity, and she began to enjoy the sport anew.

Unlike many elite gymnasts, Trinity expanded her focus beyond her gym in high school. She dove (and won a state championship title) and ran track at Tania’s urging. “She was one of the first to really pull that off,” Tania said of Trinity’s unusual decision to combine elite gymnastics training with high school sports. Thomas made one final gym change as a young teenager, to Prestige Gymnastics in Lancaster, Pa., where she first qualified for the junior elite level and where she remained for her senior elite career.

In her first year at Florida in 2019, Thomas decided to keep doing elite while also competing in the NCAA. At one point, this meant competing in a college meet, then driving overnight to an elite camp.

Asked whether Trinity has always been a multitasker, Tania thinks for a bit, then says, “Trinity’s a pleaser.” Her daughter can’t say no to things but gets overwhelmed easily, Tania says, and has to work to find a balance between all the things she commits to.

Florida’s head gymnastics coach, Jenny Rowland, said that the instinct to please is not uncommon in their sport, where gymnasts are often reliant on adults to help them learn skills and progress at a young age.

In her first few years at Florida, Rowland would describe Trinity as a “quiet leader” for her squad, but in the last year Trinity’s leadership skills have evolved as her confidence in herself has grown, and she is now more of a vocal leader.

“I didn’t really know that quietness was her lack of self-confidence, for as talented and amazing as she is,” Rowland said.

Rowland said that watching Trinity “take ownership” of her career was very satisfying as a coach. “I just love seeing my student-athletes grow up,” Rowland said.

Halley Taylor, who also competed for a fifth season at Florida this year alongside Thomas, has known Thomas since their freshman year. “I think we were both kind of shy,” Taylor said of their first encounters. She now describes Thomas as “goofy” and “silly” and praises her strong leadership skills.

Taylor recalled that Rowland offered her team two different styles of leadership: leading by example or leading by action.

“Trinity does both,” Taylor said. “She’s not the kind of person to tell people what to do, but everyone on the team trusts her.”

Gymnastics was the easy part of Thomas’ decision to take a fifth year.

“My first love is gymnastics, so that part was easy,” she said. “It was just figuring out the real-life things for my last year.” Thomas began classes towards her master’s in health education and behavior over the summer, enrolling in three courses. She says the workload is similar to that of her undergrad, but perhaps with more writing. This fall, she applied to nursing schools. She hopes to begin an accelerated nursing program over the summer in hopes of becoming a nurse practitioner.

Known for her beautiful form, Thomas acknowledges that a focus on the execution of skills versus the skills themselves is the major shift for a college gymnast coming from the elite world, where risky, difficult skills are highly valued in a completely different scoring system. Under the NCAA scoring system, where deductions come out of a perfect 10, it is more important to do easier skills with better form and technique. Once they reach college, most gymnasts know all the skills they will use in competition, and their focus shifts to perfecting those skills instead of learning new tricks.

“You’re looking at every detail, you’re trying to get a perfect 10,” Thomas said. Details, she said, “are something that I personally really focus on.”

That big, beautiful double layout on the floor remains her all-time favorite skill. She likes two transitional skills on the uneven bars, where she floats from the low bar to the high bar: the Maloney, where she catches the bar backwards, and the Van Leeuwen, where she does a half twist before catching. On beam, she loves a front aerial.

Vault remains her least favorite apparatus, but the one she has worked on most to perfect a skill that aids her team. She performs a Yurchenko one-and-a-half vault in competition, where she does a roundoff back handspring onto the vault table, then a laid-out flip with one and a half twists off it. There’s a blind landing involved. But it has a start value of a perfect 10, which is important for teams because not every gymnast can achieve that difficulty.

“That feeling you get when you stick the one and a half is just so cool,” Thomas said.

Thomas is not currently competing elite, but she has hinted that Florida’s high-flying former elites in this year’s sophomore class — Olympic alternate Leanne Wong, 2017 World champion Morgan Hurd and World medalist Riley McCusker — had inspired her to keep her options open. “I think just being able to show it’s an option, even if it’s not a popular one, was super important,” she said of her decision to do both when she started at Florida.

The rules have changed since Thomas started college, and elites now can miss camps if they are competing in NCAA. Previously, Thomas had to attend camp in order to keep her spot — and her funding — on the national team. “Some people were like, why would you want to do that?” Thomas said of her insistence on keeping one foot in elite after beginning at Florida. “I got positive stuff back, and negative things.”

Two-thirds of the 2020 United States Olympic team — Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles, Grace McCallum and Jade Carey — went to college after the Olympics while keeping their elite options open. That indicated a direct contrast to the previous two Olympic cycles that saw just one gymnast from 2012 and one from 2016 move on to college, both of whom retired from elite gymnastics. “I haven’t made any set-in-stone decisions,” Thomas said of a potential return to elite.

Another rule that has changed during Thomas’ time at Florida is the ability of student-athletes to make money off their name, image, and likeness, also known as NIL. Thomas, not surprisingly given her status as the NCAA’s top female gymnast, was a draw for businesses looking to make connections, though she called the NIL process “a learning curve.” Thomas signed with an agency and began making deals. She is represented by Raymond Representation in Miami, which counts several popular NCAA gymnasts on its roster. “With their help,” Thomas said, NIL has been “way easier to navigate.”

She has signed deals with Honey Stinger, NoCap Sports and, with four of her Gators teammates, College Hunks Moving Company — one of three deals she has inked through the Gator Collective, which helps Florida athletes with their partnerships. This year, Thomas signed a deal with Quatro Apparel to design a leotard line, and others with Amazon, European Wax Center and Tropical Smoothie Cafe, according to On3.com.

“I’ve gotten to work with some really cool companies and make some really cool connections,” Thomas said. “It’s just been cool to learn about a different kind of world, almost an entrepreneurship world.”

Thomas believes that NIL is helping raise the profile of college gymnastics, both for individual athletes and for the sport as a whole. She hopes that young girls watching her compete and appear in ads or as a spokesperson will see her as a role model.

Thomas received the Honda Award, given to the top female athlete in every NCAA sport, in 2022. Then she was a top-three finalist for the Honda Cup, the award for the top female athlete across the NCAA. The cup went to South Carolina basketball star Aliyah Boston, but Thomas had already fulfilled a goal she set as soon as she set foot in Gainesville.

When Thomas arrived on Florida’s campus for the first time to meet with Rowland, the coach asked Thomas her goals for her college gymnastics career. Thomas responded, like most Florida gymnasts she assumes, that she wanted to win an NCAA championship. Then, she added that she wanted to win the Honda Award.

“I want to be up on that wall,” she remembers saying to Rowland, referring to a photo shrine to Florida’s other four Honda Award winners before Thomas: Ann Woods, two-time winners Bridget Sloan and Kytra Hunter, and Alex McMurtry.

The Honda Award meant a lot to Tania Thomas as well. “This is an award women get for their accomplishments,” she said. “It had more meaning to me.” She recounted listening to women at the ceremony tell stories of what it was like to compete before the passage of Title IX in 1972, and how it helped her understand what a big deal it was for Trinity to receive the award.

Now, an NCAA championship is still on the table for her final year as a Gator. Florida placed second at nationals in 2022 and is eager to get over the hump this season. Thomas may be hobbling into the final weekend of the season with a leg injury, but if her career at Florida is any indication, no obstacle will stop her from trying.

img
(Doug Engle / USA TODAY Sports)

Thomas’ 2021 season, her junior year, was looking to be one for the record books. On Feb. 16 of that year, she set a Florida record for the all-around with a 39.90, one-tenth shy of a perfect score and the highest all-around score in the NCAA that year and the fifth-highest in NCAA history. At the same meet, she won at least a share of all five event titles, the first time a Florida gymnast had done so since 2018, before Thomas joined the squad. Thomas won 20 event titles, leading her team. She was the No. 1-ranked all-around gymnast in the country, and most thought she would win the NCAA title that year. As a team, Florida appeared to be in the running for the team title.

And then disaster struck. While warming up for a meet at Alabama on March 5, Thomas dismounted the uneven bars and sprained both ankles. She competed, in pain, at the regional qualifier in Athens, Ga., managing a perfect 10 on bars — the only event in which she competed there — and watching her team advance to nationals. At the same meet, Taylor hurt her calf muscle and Sydney Johnson-Scharpf tore her Achilles tendon. Florida showed up to nationals in tatters.

“That’s probably one of the hardest parts of being a head coach,” Rowland said. “The highs are extremely high, the lows are so low. It’s always really hard to see any injury, especially an injury that just happens at the wrong time.”

Thomas competed in all four events at the national semifinals in 2021 (which also determine individual titles) on sore ankles, eking out a 39.25 all-around score that put her in 11th place in the all-around standings. Florida made it to the four-on-the-floor final but finished fourth and appeared to be hanging on by a thread.

Thomas announced her retirement from elite gymnastics about a month after the 2021 NCAA national championships. She had hoped to compete at Olympic trials and vie for a spot on the U.S. team bound for Tokyo, but her ankles were not healing in time.

“That was definitely a bummer and something I took pretty hard,” Thomas said. “But then I knew that I could come back and I wanted to get my ankles in the best possible shape that I could have them in. I rested my ankles for months.” She remained in physical therapy for her ankles throughout the 2022 NCAA season.

“What was a little bit different about this season for me was pacing myself,” Thomas said. A collaboration between Thomas, her mother, her coaches, her doctor, and her trainer kept her accountable. She focused on rest and recovery and healing her ankles. Her endgame: the postseason.

“I knew it was my senior year,” she said. “I wanted a national championship. That was a huge thing for me.”

Thomas signed on for her fifth year in part to help Florida finally get that national championship during her tenure. Not for her — she feels she has accomplished much of what she hoped to as an individual in the sport. This one’s for her team.

“That’s the one thing I have left to do,” she said. “Every team I’ve been on has worked so hard, and it feels like we’re just climbing this mountain. So I hope that this is the year. I know that we’re capable of it. I know that we’ll work for it.”

Lela Moore is a freelance journalist covering gymnastics. She writes a weekly gymnastics column for The IX Newsletter. Follow her on Twitter @RunLelaRun.

Simone Biles will soon be headed to Tokyo, where she’ll join the rest of the Team USA gymnastics roster as they look to win gold. 

The International Gymnastics Federation released the draw for qualification round slots Wednesday, with Team USA drawing Subdivision 3 and starting on floor exercise. The week-long event will begin with the team competition before moving into individual competition.

Here’s when Simone Biles and the rest of Team USA Gymnastics competes (all times ET):

Saturday, July 24: The first day of qualification, Team USA will begin competition at 2:10 p.m.

Tuesday, July 27: The women’s team final, starting at 6:45 a.m.

Thursday, July 29: Women’s individual all-around competition begins, starting at 6:50 a.m.

Sunday, August 1: Women’s event finals — vault and bars, starting at 4 a.m.

Monday, August 2: Women’s event finals — floor, starting at 4 a.m.

Tuesday, August 3: Women’s event finals — beam, starting at 4 a.m.