Spring's Simone Biles wins third straight world all-around gymnastics title

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Simone Biles of Spring once again is hands down the best women’s gymnast in the world.

Biles, 18, won an unprecedented third consecutive International Gymnastics Federation world all-around championship Thursday in Glasgow, Scotland, proving once more that even on something less than her best night, at 4 feet 9 she stands head and shoulders above the international field, capable of amazing even herself.

“Pretty speechless,” she said. “I keep closing my eyes because, yes, there are goals that I have and I dream of them and then I make them reality.

“I’m just shocked by myself. If I could crawl out of my skin and see it, it would be, like, amazing.”

It is amazing, and, in the four-decade history of the world all-around championships, unprecedented. And now, with three USA Gymnastics titles to go with her third world all-around title, Biles can set her sights on the next, biggest goal: the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics.

Biles scored 60.399 points in her four-event victory lap, leading 2012 Olympic gold medalist Gabriele Douglas of Tarzana, Calif., with 59.316 and Larisa Iordache of Romania, the 2014 world runner-up, with 59.107.

With a mixture of power and athleticism that makes her arguably the most dominant athlete in any Olympic sport at this point in time, Biles is in a class by herself, said 1984 Olympic gold medalist Mary Lou Retton.

Gold medal winner Simone Biles of the U.S., center, silver medal winner Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands, left, and Bronze medal winner Germany's Pauline Schaefer pose on the podium after the balance beam exercise during the women's apparatus final competition at the World Artistic Gymnastics championships at the SSE Hydro Arena in Glasgow, Scotland, Sunday, Nov. 1, 2015. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader) less Gold medal winner Simone Biles of the U.S., center, silver medal winner Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands, left, and Bronze medal winner Germany's Pauline Schaefer pose on the podium after the balance beam ... more Photo: Matthias Schrader, Associated Press Photo: Matthias Schrader, Associated Press Image 1 of / 228 Caption Close Spring's Simone Biles wins third straight world all-around gymnastics title 1 / 228 Back to Gallery

“At this point, it’s just a matter of wondering who the other Olympic medalists are going to be,” Retton said. “She had major mistakes today and still won. So unless she’s not healthy, and I don’t want to jinx anybody, there’s no question in my mind that she will win the Olympic all-around gold.”

Remarkably, Biles doubled her margin of victory over Iordache from a year ago even with two significant mistakes on balance beam and floor exercise.

About 50 seconds into her 90-second beam routine, she failed to make a solid landing with both feet after a forward tuck somersault and had to grab the balance beam with both hands to keep from falling. On floor, she bounced out of bounds during a tumbling pass.

“It was real weird,” she said. “I felt like myself, but when I made the mistakes it was, ‘Oh, my gosh. What am I doing right now?’ It was very weird.”

With the errors, Biles’ four-event score Thursday was about a point less than her qualifying score, and she acknowledged that the pressure of going for an unprecedented third consecutive title weighed on her.

“Sometimes the pressure is increased, but most of the time I try to keep it like on the down low,” she said. “Tonight, I kind of felt the pressure a little bit. I was hearing it, and through the mistake I kept looking at the scoreboard and looking at my scores, and it was like, ‘Oh, my gosh’ and like, ‘Stop. You’re fine.’”

Biles said she normally avoids scoreboard watching, but with history on the line, “I’ve got to see it,” she said. “Everyone wanted the three-peat, and, yes, I wanted it, and if it didn’t happen I would still be proud of myself, but it was like, I don’t know. I had to look to be sure.”

With the win, Biles joins Russian champion Svetlana Khorkina as the only three-time winner of the women’s all-around, although Khorkina’s three titles were not consecutive. Douglas, meanwhile, became the first reigning Olympic all-around champion to win an all-around medal since Elena Davydova of the Soviet Union in 1981.

Their 1-2 finish marks the third time that U.S. women have won gold and silver in the world all-around, following Chellsie Memmel and Nastia Liukin in 2005 and Biles and Kyla Ross in 2013. They celebrated the occasion by posing side by side, each flexing one arm, and exchanged hugs on the medals stand.

Before her win Thursday, Biles was tied with Shannon Miller for the most world all-around titles by a United States woman. Bridget Sloan and Shawn Johnson and Memmel also are winners of the event first won by a U.S. woman in 1991, when Houston gymnast Kim Zmeskal won the gold medal.

Zmeskal, who now coaches in the Dallas area, tweeted of Biles, “THREE! Just WOW to the amazing Simone Biles.”

Biles now has eight world gold medals and 11 total medals at worlds. She has a chance to add additional hardware this weekend with individual event finals in vault, balance beam and floor exercise.

“This code of points (the scoring system governing gymnastics) favors strong, powerful athletes,” Retton said. “It would have been my type of event. Now, the code is made for a Simone Biles.”

david.barron@chron.com

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