SportsPulse: A video of Simone Biles doing the very difficult ‘Yurchenko double pike’ has gone viral on the interent, so we caught up with the four-time olympic gold medalist to see if she will attempt the move in Tokyo.
SportsPulse: A video of Simone Biles doing the very difficult ‘Yurchenko double pike’ has gone viral on the interent, so we caught up with the four-time olympic gold medalist to see if she will attempt the move in Tokyo.
If you don’t know who Nia Dennis is by now, you’d better get to know her. Her amazing floor routines are absolutely taking over the internet.
The UCLA junior wowed us before by spelling her actual name in the air during one of her routines. This year, on her 21st birthday, she got busy on the floor to a bunch of Beyonce hits in an absolutely stunning performance.
First of all, with anything that you do in life, bringing Beyonce into the picture in any way, shape or form absolutely helps. Nia clearly has some great taste in music.
But that wasn’t it — just watch her moves. You absolutely love to see it. And the way she stuck that landing at the end? *chefs kiss*
After competing on the road, @DennisNia had an unforgettable "Homecoming" performance in Westwood last weekend. 👑🥁
Dennis’ routine only earned a 9.975 from the judges, which is still an absolutely great score! But, somehow, it still feels criminally underrated.
And, listen, I know absolutely nothing about judging gymnastics. But if Chadwick Boseman can judge dunks, I can judge this. This is easily a 10. Bonus points for hitting the woah at the 50 second mark.
This performance from Dennis, somehow, did not win the competition for UCLA — they were juuuust beaten by Utah, 198.075-198.025.
It’s alright, though. They didn’t win the competition but they absolutely won the internet.
Nia Dennis scores a career-high 9.975 on floor and The Den sings her happy birthday. She was really looking for that 10 though. With fans chanting for a 10, Norah Flatley screamed at the direction of one of the judges "10! 10!"
And her reaction was just as perfect as her throw.
Simone Biles wins at everything she does, apparently, even when she competes in something fun and light-hearted outside of the gymnastics world.
The soon-to-be-23-year-old gymnast — who owns a combined 30 Olympic and world championship medals and was For The Win’s most dominant athlete of the 2010s (and it wasn’t even close) — showed off her axe-throwing skills in a video she tweeted Thursday night. Not only did the superstar gymnast nail a bullseye with this attempt, but she also had the most spectacular reaction to it.
As soon as the axe perfectly hit the center of the target, Biles turned around and began screaming and jumping up and down with excitement. What a shot:
She’s seemingly in awe of herself, and we’re pretty impressed too.
While she prepares for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics this summer, Biles continues teasing the internet with other stunning training videos as she keeps defying the laws of physics. Just look at the most recent video she posted from the gym:
37-year-old Nicole Clemens is a former gymnast who has been watching her daughter excel at the sport for years. This is the moment she found the courage to tumble the way she’s been dreaming about since she was 14.
37-year-old Nicole Clemens is a former gymnast who has been watching her daughter excel at the sport for years. This is the moment she found the courage to tumble the way she’s been dreaming about since she was 14.
On Saturday night, the No. 5Alabama Crimson Tide Gymnastics team came in second in the Metroplex, beating No. 18 Georgia and No. 4 Denver.
On Saturday night, the No. 5Alabama Crimson Tide Gymnastics team came in second in the Metroplex, beating No. 18 Georgia and No. 4 Denver. Although the Crimson Tide lost to No. 1 Oklahoma, the Crimson Tide showed they’re a team who is consistently improving, and has a good chance to be a championship team.
Saturday’s meet was the Crimson Tide’s first quad meet of the season. The meet was also on a podium with four-foot risers that elevates the equipment. This is the same environment that Alabama will see at both the Southeastern Conference and NCAA Championships at the end of the season.
It was also the first of two Saturday meets for the Tide during the 2020 regular season.
Roll Tide Wire will update this post once official stats are released.
Alabama travels to Baton Rouge, La. to compete against the No. 8 LSU Tigers on Friday, Jan. 31 at 7:30 p.m. CT.
SportsPulse: USA TODAY Sports spoke with the co-authors of the new book “Start by Believing” which uncovers untold stories surrounding atrocities of Larry Nassar and the institutions that enabled them.
SportsPulse: USA TODAY Sports spoke with the co-authors of the new book “Start by Believing” which uncovers untold stories surrounding atrocities of Larry Nassar and the institutions that enabled them.
I can’t decide if Simone Biles’ historic triple twisting-double somersault is more incredible in slow-motion or real-time. While slow-motion highlights the details of the move she performed during her floor routine on her way to a sixth U.S. national championship in August, the real-time video illustrates just how much she jam-packs into one powerful pass.
It doesn’t really matter, though, because I’ll watch any and all versions of Biles’ high-flying triple-double — or three twists plus two flips — a skill so challenging she was the first woman to do it. That move is just one of the countless examples of her greatness and only one footnote in her decade of dominance.
No athlete in the entire world has dominated his or her respective sport in the 2010s like Biles has in gymnastics. No athlete has redefined dominance or impacted the way others approach competition like she has, and no athlete has the hardware to prove it all like she does.
It’s not even close.
Everyone remembers her utter excellence at the 2016 Rio Olympics when four of her five medals were gold, including her victory in the all-around by an astronomically large margin of more than two points over American teammate Aly Raisman. She led the “Final Five” to team gold, while also finishing at the top of the podium on vault and floor exercise with her lone bronze medal coming on the balance beam.
That summer, Biles became a household name, but she was ruling the gymnastics world years before that.
Since 2013, she’s won 25 world championship medals to become the most decorated male or female gymnast in history at worlds, most recently taking home five golds in Germany in October to raise her career gold medal total at the event to 19. And, looking ahead, it’s possible she could win five more gold medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
In every world championship Biles entered this decade, she won gold in the all-around and floor exercise (2013, 2014, 2015, 2018, 2019). In fact, she’s won every all-around competition in which she competed since 2013. (She cleaned up at the Olympics in 2016 and took a break from gymnastics in 2017.)
She was on top of the world for six years this decade, and that is — in the truest sense of the word — unbelievable.
She won her sixth all-around national title in August, but her overall win actually took a backseat to two jaw-dropping moments from the competition. One was, of course, the triple-double, during which she got so much air that she could have cleared an SUV, as USA TODAY Sports’ Nancy Armour observed.
You already know we had to get the slo-mo for y'all…
“I can’t describe what it feels like because we’re in total control of our bodies,” Biles told For The Win about the skill not long after nationals. “So it doesn’t feel like we’re way up there and gravity’s trying to pull us back down. In a way, if feels like we’re flying, but it’s very controlled.”
And with her dismount on the balance beam, she became the first gymnast to land a double-twisting double somersault. The move is so exceptional that at world championships a couple months later, the International Gymnastics Federation actually punished her for having the audacity to perform something only she is capable of in a misguided attempt to deter others from attempting it.
With these two moves, she now has four skills named after her, which happens when a gymnast is the first to successfully perform something new.
So obviously the GOAT in gymnastics, Biles also deserves to be included in debates about the greatest athletes of all time because of her sustained success. She’s so far ahead of her competition that sometimes she can make a mistake and still comfortably win.
Her name deserves to be listed alongside all-time greats like Michael Phelps, Serena Williams, Michael Jordan and Tom Brady, and she continues throwing one impressive accolade after the other on her resume. But as far as total domination of the 2010s goes, Biles stands alone above her peers, above her fellow GOATs and above the laws of physics.
