Biles, a first year senior elite in 2013, dominated the women’s senior division in the fall of 2013. At the 2013 P&G Championships, Biles won her first U.S. senior all-around title, as well as the vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise silver medals. At the 2013 World Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, Biles became the first African-American gymnast and only the seventh American woman to win a World all-around crown. She also earned gold in the individual floor exercise after completing a stunning double layout half out, which is now officially named “The Biles” because she is the first woman to successfully perform the skill in a World Championship or Olympic competition. Biles placed second in the vault,
third on the balance beam and fourth in the uneven bars. She was the first U.S. woman since Shannon Miller in 1991 to qualify for the all-around and all four individual event finals at a World Championships. For the first half of 2014, Biles was selected to represent the USA at both the AT&T American Cup and Pacific Rim Gymnastics Championships but withdrew due to injury.
More recently, Biles won her second straight U.S. all-around title, as well as added the U.S. vault title, when she won at the 2014 P&G Championships. She also was the silver medalist for the uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise.
And, earlier this month, she became the first U.S. woman since Shannon Miller (1993-94) and the first woman since Svetlana Khorkina (2001, 2003) to win back-to-back World all-around titles. At the World Championships in Nanning, China, she also helped the U.S. Team to its second consecutive and third overall World team title. Biles also won the balance and floor exercise gold medals and the vault silver. She is the first woman to win four gold medals at a single World Championships since the Soviet Union’s Ludmilla Tourischeva in 1974.
Biles now has six World gold medals, surpassing the five owned by Shannon Miller, and her career total of nine World medals ties with Nastia Liukin and Miller, which is exceeded only by Alicia Sacramone’s 10 medals. Biles’ World medals are: gold – all-around (2013-14), balance beam (2014), floor exercise (2013-14) and team (2014); silver – vault (2013-14); and bronze – balance beam (2013).
Biles was one of 11 finalists for the individual Sportswoman of the Year. The others were: Jamie Anderson (USA), snowboarding; Marie Bochet (France), Paralympic alpine skiing; Darya Domracheva (Belarus), biathlon; Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (Jamaica), track and field; Katina Hosszu (Hungary), swimming; Stacy Lewis (USA), golf; Tina Maze, alpine skiing, Slovenia; Jamie Whitmore (USA), Paralympic cycling; Serena Williams (USA), tennis; and Ireen Wust (Netherlands), speedskating. The winner was determined by the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Awards Committee and the public.
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