Simone Biles wins a record 8th US Gymnastics title a full decade after her first
Simone Biles won't explain. Part of it is planned. Partly because she can't.
The gymnast feels like she's in a "fever dream" when she's at her best, as she was Sunday night when she won her record eighth U.S. championship. Not exactly autopilot. It's a feel. A flow.
Those moments erase her daily doubts, a decade into an unmatched run of excellence.
Thinking is absent. No overthinking. No “twisties.” All of it fades. Her coach Laurent Landi considers it a talent. Even at 26, Biles won't go that far. Maybe because she doesn't want to.
She got lost in her brain for too long. She's determined not to repeat it.
She was smiling midway through a floor routine that stopped practically every other competitor and prompted a standing ovation from a segment of the sellout SAP Center crowd.
She can't explain why. She was confused when her coaches said she'd mastered every tumbling pass.
She's a 26-year-old newlywed determined to enjoy it. No joke. She doubted herself six months ago. Three weeks earlier, she returned to competition in Chicago feeling like she would "throw up" as she saluted the judges.