(Antwerp) The queen of gymnastics Simone Biles, back after two years off, won her 22nd and 23rd world crowns on Sunday in Antwerp and leaves the competition with four titles, less than 10 months before the Paris Olympic Games .
Biles, already a team and all-around winner at these Worlds, won gold twice on Sunday, first on beam then on floor.
“I don’t have the words actually,” reacted the 26-year-old gymnast about her experience during the Antwerp week. “The energy of the crowd, the competition… I’m just excited to be here, to feel the pressure again. I think I learned a lot moving forward. »
First on the beam track, the American obtained an exceptional score of 14.800, closely followed by the young 17-year-old Chinese Zhou Yaqin (14.700), while the Brazilian Rebeca Andrade, who had beaten Biles the day before in the final vault, took the bronze medal (14.300).
During a high-level final, the American performed a series of acrobatics without moving a millimeter on the apparatus. But her title was decided by very little, as the Chinese Zhou was so impressive in her lightness. Gold only escaped the latter due to a step back taken at the exit of the beam, penalized by a tenth of a point.
Barely an hour and a half later, Simone Biles was back on the competition stage for the floor final. Despite going off the mat on a diagonal, the American, who amazed with the amplitude of her jumps, won with a score of 14.633.
Rebeca Andrade, whose duel with Biles punctuated the competition, once again offered her smile, her energy and her charisma to the spectators at the Sportpaleis in the Flemish city to take silver (14,500), ahead of her compatriot Flavia Saraiva (13,966 ). Andrade, revelation of the Tokyo Games, is the other great protagonist of the competition with five medals, including one gold.
“With Rebeca, we were on the same podiums, so I have the feeling that we push each other to bring out the best in ourselves,” reacted the Texan. “I love having her [as a competitor]. She’s incredible to watch, she’s going to be extraordinary. It’s a pleasure to see her at work. »
With his two new titles, Biles now has 23 world golds for 30 medals.
In Belgium, where she competed in her first World Championships ten years ago, the American added five medals to her collection, four of which were gold.
She had to settle for silver on vault due to a fall on the landing, and her worst finish was a fifth place on the uneven bars, the apparatus that traditionally does her least well.
Simone Biles is making a breathtaking return to the international level, two years after the grueling Tokyo Games marked by the episode of “twisties”, these brutal and unpredictable losses of any reference in space.
She then cut herself completely from gymnastics and only returned to competition last August in the United States.
“I was a little worried but I knew I had trained properly and I said to myself, ‘Come what may,’ so I wasn’t stressed about the number of medals or their colors,” she said. she asserted.
Less than ten months before the Paris Olympic Games, the four-time Olympic champion gave very few clues about the rest of her program: “I can’t answer questions about the future, I’m just going to live in the present moment “.