Simone Biles hurts her leg in Olympic gymnastics qualifying but finishes 1st anyway

On her first day of competitors on the 2024 Olympic Video games, the gymnast Simone Biles appeared to harm her leg throughout a warm-up routine — an damage that brought on issues however finally didn’t preserve her from finishing her routines and ending in first place.

After the competitors, Biles’s coach, Cecile Landi, downplayed the importance of the damage. “She felt slightly one thing in her calf,” Landi mentioned.

Regardless of the damage, Biles posted excessive scores, together with a competition-high 15.8 on the vault. Joined by sturdy performances from her teammates, it was sufficient to safe a spot for the U.S. ladies’s gymnastics crew within the crew all-around ultimate on Tuesday, wherein the U.S. is a favourite to win gold. The person all-around ultimate is about for Thursday.

There are at present no issues “in the intervening time” about Biles’s skill to compete in these occasions, Landi mentioned.

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Biles appeared to harm her leg throughout a warm-up for the ground train, her second equipment of the evening. After touchdown a cross, Biles walked gingerly off the mat the place she consulted along with her coaches then disappeared briefly from the ground. Afterward, she returned to have her ankle and decrease calf wrapped with thick athletic tape.

Regardless of the damage, Biles went on to finish her remaining routines, scoring a excessive of 15.8 on the vault. “By no means in her thoughts” was there a query of whether or not she would proceed, Landi mentioned.

Expectations for Biles and the remainder of the U.S. ladies’s gymnastics crew are sky-high at this Olympic Video games in Paris.

Biles, 27, has been performing on the highest stage of her profession since she returned to competitors final yr after a two-year hiatus. She is taken into account the favourite to win no less than three particular person gold medals, together with a crew all-around gold for the U.S.

An damage might set these aspirations again. “Initially, I simply need to be certain that she’s bodily okay, after which we’re simply going to go from there,” mentioned ladies’s crew technical lead Chellsie Memmel. “What she was capable of do, with trying like she had some soreness or one thing in her decrease leg, is exceptional.”

Biles had briefly skilled a problem along with her calf earlier this month, Landi revealed. “After that, it stopped. Then slightly bit once more at present,” Landi mentioned. “Just a bit ache in her calf.”

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The U.S. ladies’s crew completed their spherical of {qualifications} with the highest spot on the crew rankings. Gymnasts Jordan Chiles and Sunisa Lee, the defending gold medalist within the particular person all-around, each completed about 3.5 factors behind Biles.

“Their purpose, it’s extremely apparent, is to return house with a gold medal,” Memmel mentioned.

In three of Sunday’s rounds, Biles carried out final. In consequence, as her opponents rested, she drew the total consideration of a crowd of about 15,000, a lot of whom — together with celebrities Snoop Dogg, Tom Cruise and Anna Wintour — had come largely to see her.

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