June 27, 2021

Simone Biles Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop

Kyle Okita/AP

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The US Olympic gymnastics trials are upon us, which means ’tis the season when Simone Biles performs mind-blowing routines and the rest of us are left speechless.

By the end of Friday evening, the first of the two-part competition, Biles led the pack of Olympic hopefuls by nearly three points and had won the highest scores on vault, floor, and beam. 

Biles’ floor routine on Friday included a triple-double, a.k.a. The Biles, which the internet tells us is a double backflip with three twists. We still don’t really get it, but in any case, the video is bonkers:

On the balance beam, Biles performed yet another move named after her, a double-double dismount:

Even in her “weakest” event, the uneven bars, Biles still managed to score third:

In between events, Biles wore slides with a goat on them, which have also bedazzled her leotards in past competitions. Why? Because she is the Greatest Of All Time. “The idea was to hit back at the haters,” she recently told Marie Claire. “I want kids to learn that, yes, it’s okay to acknowledge that you’re good or even great at something.”

Biles will be competing again during the second part of the competition, Sunday evening at 8 pm ET. 

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

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Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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