Breaking News: US gymnastics championships: Simone Biles wins record ninth national all-around title

Simone Biles rolled backwards onto the mat on her vault Sunday night, the error didn’t even matter. Her lead at the 2024 U.S. championships was so massive, and her eponymous vault so difficult, that her victory was already all but assured.

Biles won her record ninth all-around national title Sunday night, cruising to victory once again at Dickies Arena en route to what will surely be a third trip to the Olympic Games. Over two nights of competition, she recorded the highest score on all four events. And her all-around margin of victory – 5.9 points – was the gymnastics equivalent of a rout.

Biles, 27, will now look ahead to the U.S. Olympic trials at the end of this month – the moment when she will learn who her four teammates on Team USA will be.

I couldn’t be more proud of how I’m doing at this time in the year,” Biles said on NBC after her win. “Just gaining that confidence over and over, getting myself back in front of a crowd and just doing what I do in practice.”

Skye Blakely, who finished second, was among several women who boosted their candidacies for Paris – displaying the combination of consistency and ability that the selection committee will be seeking as it assembles the 2024 Olympic team.

Suni Lee, the reigning all-around Olympic champion, also had a strong showing – particularly on her two best events, uneven bars and balance beam. On Sunday, she improved her scores on those two apparatuses alone by nearly a full point from Friday’s opening round. She finished fourth.

Kayla DiCello (third) and Jordan Chiles (fifth) rounded out the top five.

Blakely, 19, was perhaps the most impressive gymnast in the senior women’s competition Friday night outside of Biles. And she finished just a quarter of a point off that all-around score on Sunday.

Blakely received a thundering ovation when she stepped onto the podium alongside Biles at the end of the night, celebrating one of the biggest moments of her senior career to date in front of what amounts to a hometown crowd; Blakely resides in Frisco, Texas, just a short drive east of Dickies Arena in Fort Worth.

Though Lee is the reigning all-around Olympic champion, it’s her scores on balance beam and uneven bars that would be most valuable to Team USA in Paris. So it was a positive sign that Lee fared well on both events on both nights, finishing second only to Biles on beam and placing fourth on bars − even with a routine that is well short of her top-end difficulty.

A veteran of the 2021 Olympic team and close friend and training partner of Biles’, Chiles improved slightly on the second night of competition, earning a silver medal on uneven bars and placing in the top-five on vault. She’s hardly a lock to make the Paris team at this point, but she’s put herself squarely in the mix.

second-best U.S. all-arounder behind Simone Biles, withdrew from the U.S. championships with a shoulder injury. Kaliya Lincoln participated in the first two rotations Friday night before bowing out.

They are expected to join Biles, runner-up Skye Blakely and at least eight others at trials, which will take place in Minneapolis starting June 27. − Tom Schad

FORT WORTH, Texas − Winning a ninth U.S. title wasn’t enough for Simone Biles. She won every event, too.

Biles capped her night with a solid routine on uneven bars, her “weakest” event. She flitted effortlessly between the bars and worked quickly going from one skill to the next. She was a little off-center on her upgraded dismount, a double-twisting, double somersault, and needed to take a step to secure herself. But that’s a minor blemish.

She scored a 14.4 and her combined total of 29.050 over the two nights put her in first place on the event ahead of Skye Blakely.