One of the many casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic was the 2020 Olympics. Thankfully, the event wasn't canceled altogether, but it was postponed. With that said, a number of athletes were faced with a tough obstacle. Athletes across all Olympic sports were put in a position where they had to spend another year training, working and building toward a potential moment on the medal stand. While this may have been a lot to overcome for some athletes, Simone Biles has seemingly found a way to stay sharp and get better. Her skill and confidence was on full display at the U.S. Classic in Indianapolis, Indiana this weekend.
Biles is already in the history books, but she made another entry over the weekend. The accomplished gymnast made history by becoming the first woman to perform a Yurchenko double pike in a competition. Amazed by what she had just accomplished, her competitors and fans looked on in awe. Not long thereafter, video of her performance made the rounds on Twitter, drawing praise from former First Lady Michelle Obama and NBA Champion LeBron James.
The only drawback of this moment was the rules and regulations put in place by the International Federation of Gymnastics. Prior to her performance, men had only performed this move in competition. As a result, the move had been seemingly outlawed in women's competition. The International Federation of Gymnastics has assigned a start value of 6.6 to the move, which is only slightly higher than the start value of other moves of lesser difficulty.
"That's on the [International Federation of Gymnastics], that's not on me," Biles told ESPN.
"They have an open-end code of points, and now they're mad people are too far ahead and excelling."
Regardless of how the scores were put together, Biles still came out on top with a final score of 58.400. Her next stop? She is hoping to win another gold medal at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan this summer.
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