Simone Biles has become the most decorated gymnast in history after sealing her sixth career world all-around title in Antwerp.
The 26-year-old’s appearance at the 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships marks her return to major international competition after she took a two-year break to focus on her mental health.
The American gymnast led her team to a record seventh straight title on Wednesday.
Her golden comeback continued in record-breaking style as she finished with a top score of 58.399 on Friday, 1.633 points above Brazilian silver medallist Rebeca Andrade with compatriot Shilese Jones rounding out the top three.
The medal was Biles’ 34th at an Olympics or World Championship – the most achieved by a male or female gymnast in the history of the sport after surpassing the 33 achieved by Belarusian Vitaly Scherbo.
Her historic gold came precisely 10 years – and in the exact same venue – as her first world all-around title in 2013 and she appeared to be welling up when the American national anthem played.
Biles told Sky’s US partner network NBC News: “I was emotional because it was my first worlds here 10 years ago, and then now my sixth one, so it is crazy.
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“But I swear, I do have something in my eye that’s been bothering me for like four hours, and I cannot get it out. So while I was looking up there, it was like a combination of both.”
Image: Biles on the balance beam during the women’s individual all-around final
Biles could still add more medals to her collection with the individual apparatus finals still to come on Saturday and Sunday – Biles has qualified for all four.
Yurchenko vaults involve landing on the horse or vaulting platform facing forwards and the double pike is regarded as the most difficult of the manoeuvres.
The vault will now be named Biles II after a different original jump was named after her in 2018.
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Meanwhile, Great Britain gymnast Jessica Gadirova, the 2022 world floor champion, dropped out of the competition at the last minute on Friday.
British Gymnastics announcing the decision in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, which read: “Update. As a precautionary measure Jessica Gadirova will not be competing in tonight’s all-around World final, Alice Kinsella will now compete in her place for Great Britain.”
Kinsella ultimately finished seventh with a score of 54.032, while teammate Ondine Achampong placed 13th in her first world all-around final.
Image: Britain’s Alice Kinsella
Kinsella, the 2023 British national all-around champion, admitted the dramatic call-up came as a shock.
She told the BBC: “I only went (out) to do little bits and bobs like stretching, conditioning, and then I went off to get my foot rubbed, then my coach came over and was like, ‘Alice, you need to get your leotard on straight away’.
“I was a bit stressed, I didn’t really know what to do or say to anyone. I just ran to the toilet, shoved it on, and that was it really.”
Donald Trump wants to emulate Vladimir Putin and “govern his own country in a similar fashion”, his former national security adviser has said.
Fiona Hill told Sky News’ The World with Yalda Hakim that the US and Russian presidents both share the same view of the world as being “divided up among three major powers; Russia, the US and China, with very clear spheres of influence”.
She said the two leaders “have shockingly similar world views”.
Image: Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Pic: Reuters
“This is the first time we’ve had a US president who wants to emulate the Russian leader in some way, who wants to create a hyper-personalised presidency, who wants to basically govern his own country in a very similar fashion, very top down without any checks and balances,” she said.
Ms Hill added Mr Trump wants to “regularise, normalise and reset” the relationship between the US and Russia.
“That’s very clear, it’s been clear since the first presidency of Trump,” she said.
“He’s always wanted to sit down with Vladimir Putin and sort out all of the difficulties in the bilateral relationship, everything from nuclear issues and nuclear arms reduction – there’s all kinds of economic and business deals that Trump himself and his immediate circle are very interested in.
“That was not the direction of travel of other US presidents. So in actual fact there’s probably more chance under Trump of a close relationship between the US and Putin.”
Ms Hill said Mr Trump has an interest in forging a “personal relationship” beyond what he already has with Mr Putin.
“He wants to extricate the United States from its support for Ukraine, he’s said that very clearly,” she said.
“He also wants to pull back from the underpinning of European security and get the Europeans to pick up not just support for Ukraine, but also much more involvement and much more in-depth payment for all of their own security, that’s also very clear.
“So there is a strategic perspective there and I think part of the US strategy and the Trump administration strategy is to push the Europeans to go off essentially on their owns in terms of framing what they want in European security and making it very clear to the Ukrainians that they can’t expect much more future support from the United States.”
Hours after US secretary of state Marco Rubio withdrew from high-level talks in London aimed at ending the conflict, the American president heaped pressure on Volodymyr Zelenskyy to “get it done”.
It’s not that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy won’t back down, it’s that he can’t.
The US plan to recognise Russia‘s claim to Ukrainian territory it has seized effectively legitimises Moscow’s decision to invade.
To concede that would be a breach of Ukraine’s constitution.
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Ukraine has not hinted at recognising Crimea as Russian ‘for even a day’
The country’s economy minister Yuliia Svyrydenko says they’re “ready to negotiate, not ready to surrender”.
US vice president JD Vance has now stepped into Marco Rubio’s shoes, warning that America will “walk away” if there isn’t a “yes” from both sides.
But President Trump is only talking about one side: Ukraine.
The absence of any reference to Russian President Vladimir Putin in his lengthy post online will not have gone unnoticed.
He claimed no one was asking Zelenskyy to recognise Crimea as Russian, but contradicted that by asking why Ukraine hadn’t fought for Crimea 11 years ago.
President Trump blamed the loss of Crimea on one of his predecessors, his reference to “President Barack Hussein Obama” revealing the depth of his frustration.
He claims he is “very close” to a deal, but the signals from Washington, London, Moscow and Kyiv suggest otherwise.
Right now, it feels like he’s much closer to throwing in the towel and throwing Zelenskyy under the bus. Again.
Global stock markets and the dollar have rallied on hopes of two significant climbdowns by the Trump administration on issues blamed for a slump in values.
Remarks by the US Treasury secretary on punitive tariffs against China lifted the mood on Wall Street initially before the president himself moved to calm market trade war worries and also end speculation he could fire the head of the country’s central bank.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and tech-focused Nasdaq Composite both ended Tuesday trading 2.7% up, erasing losses of the previous day.
Asian markets later followed that lead, with the Hang Seng in Hong Kong gaining 2.4%.
European indices also saw a strong opening, with the FTSE 100 up by more than 1.2%. It was led higher by Asia-focused banks HSBC and Standard Chartered.
US futures suggested Wall Street would pick up where it left off, with further strong gains expected.
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The US dollar – badly hit by trade war implications in recent weeks – was at least a cent higher than a day earlier against many rival currencies including the pound.
The rally gathered steam on Tuesday evening when US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent told a private JPMorgan event that he expected a “de-escalation” in the spiralling spat with China.
It’s a fight that has seen US tariffs hit 145% and China responding with duties of 125%.
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Trump: Tariffs are making US ‘rich’
According to a transcript obtained by the Associated Press news agency, he told the audience: “Neither side thinks the status quo is sustainable”, but he added that peace talks were yet to start in earnest and could take time to bear fruit.
His boss later struck a similar tone in remarks to reporters when he said the final tariff rate with China would come down “substantially” from the current 145%.
“It won’t be that high, not going to be that high,” Mr Trump said, adding: “We’re doing fine with China… we’re going to live together very happily and ideally work together.”
He gave no hint that he plans to ease wider tariffs on trading partners, including the UK which is currently subject to 25% tariffs on car, steel and aluminium imports and a wider 10% “baseline” tariff.
But the president did row back on an apparent threat, made last week, to sack the chair of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell in revenge for the US central bank holding off on interest rate cuts that could provide some stimulus to the tariff-hit economy.
Mr Powell has said the Trump administration’s protectionist policies have created uncertainty over growth and the threat of higher inflation.
The president has dismissed those arguments but told reporters: “I have no intention of firing him”.
Image: Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell was nominated for the role by Donald Trump in 2017. File pic: AP
His comments were widely seen as an attempt to calm financial market concerns that the independence of the country’s central bank was under threat.
Analysts cautioned there was a long way to go to recover values seen before the start of the trade war, with the Nasdaq remaining almost 16% down in the year to date alone.
US government borrowing costs also remain elevated.
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What IMF said about the UK economy
Not helping sentiment were big downgrades to global growth forecasts by the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday.
Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone, said of the investor mood: “Participants understandably remain jittery, not only as the haven value of both Treasuries and the USD (US dollar) continue to be called into question, but also as a huge degree of trade uncertainty continues to linger.
“As a reminder, the whole concept of ’90 deals in 90 days’ is currently running at ‘0 deals in 14 days’ which, to be frank, doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.”