Simone Biles Named ESPN’s Most Dominant Athlete of 2018

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Nick Lividini, Sports Editor

October 24th, 2018, Doha World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. The day before qualification Simone Biles is at the her fourth and most anticipated World Championships. Though, the night before qualifications, she feels a sharp and unbearable pain in her stomach and is rushed to the hospital. She is given an X-ray and the doctors tell her that she has a kidney stone. Simone, as strong as she is pushed through the pain, qualified her team into the team finals, herself into the all-around final and all of the individual event finals. The dynamic Biles went on the have the most successful World Championships ever by any gymnast male or female even with a kidney stone. After all was said and done, she led the U.S.A to an 8 point win which is unheard of in the gymnastics world. She won her fourth consecutive all-around final and won both the floor and vault finals and respectively came in third on beam and second on uneven bars. And on top of all that she even created a new vault ultimately getting another skill named after her. Now it only makes perfect sense that Simone Biles was names ESPN’s Most Dominant Athlete of 2018.

Her name was among the list of athletes such as Chloe Kim, the youngest halfpipe Olympic Champ and Lebron James, no explanation needed, that ESPN also named in order of dominance. Simone’s year was incomparable to anyone else’s even that of Eliud Kipchoge named second on the list after running multiple world records in the marathon and other distances.

Another icing on Simone’s cake is that she became the first woman to win every single event at them U.S National Gymnastics Championships. Although, Simone’s story didn’t just start this year, it started ever since she stepped foot in a gym at age six during an accidental field trip to the gym that she would train at for a large part of her career. As a junior gymnast — elite gymnasts under 16 — she was not much of a stand out athlete and could only manage a 24th place finish at U.S. Nationals. Though in 2013, when she became a senior gymnast she and emerged to became America’s next best gymnast. At the 2013, 2014 and 2015 world championship she would become the first woman to ever win back-to-back-to-back all-around titles. In those 3 years she would also win 14 medals at the world championships. In the 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janeiro, Biles put her gymnast supremacy to the test and won five medals. Gold in the team, all-around, vault, floor and bronze on the balance beam after an unforeseen mistake from the perfect Biles.

This achievement is not just an accomplishment for gymnasts but, for female athletes over all sports worldwide. In the past 20 year 17 out of the 20 ESPN’s Most Dominant Athlete have been male. Hopefully, in the near future more female athletes will crowd this list with extensive accolades.