EVERETT — With the 2016 Olympics just five months away, fans at the upcoming Pacific Rim Gymnastics Championships in Everett will get to glimpse some elite members of the United States national team.
Among them is the young woman who is, by all accounts, the leading candidate for a gold rush at the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.
In a country that has produced the likes of Mary Lou Retton, Shannon Miller, Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin, Carly Patterson and Gabby Douglas, 19-year-old Simone Biles already has risen farther and faster than any other, and all in advance of her first Olympics.
Too young for the 2012 Games in London, Biles reached the senior ranks in 2013 and has already accumulated 10 gold medals and 14 total medals at the World Championships. In U.S. history, the nearest U.S. competitors at the World Championships are Miller with five golds and nine total, and Alicia Sacramone with four golds and 10 total.
Moreover, Biles’ 10 World Championships gold medals are the most in history for a female gymnast from anywhere in the world. Likewise, no one has matched her total of 14 World Championships medals in just three years or her mark of three consecutive world all-around titles.
“I think it’s pretty cool what I’ve accomplished,” Biles said by telephone recently. “But then there’s always that next goal that you’re looking forward to. So once you get one (goal), then you just I kind of look forward to what’s next and what’s to come and what can I improve on.
“And then you just get back in the gym and work.”
In gymnastics, of course, the Olympic Games have the brightest spotlight, and the legacies formed there tend to be the most lasting. Retton competed only briefly at the highest international level, but it coincided with the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, where she won the all-around gold medal, making her a household name, which she remains today.
Biles would likely do the same with an exceptional showing in Rio de Janeiro, but in the meantime there are the Pacific Rim Championships, slated for April 8-10 at Xfinity Arena in Everett. It will be her first international competition since the 2015 World Championships last October in Glasgow, Scotland, where Biles won gold medals in floor exercise, balance beam, all-around and team, and a bronze in vault.
Since then, Biles has been preparing a new second vault and a new floor routine, which she will unveil in Everett. Fittingly, the floor routine includes music from the 2011 animated movie “Rio.”
In addition to the all-around, Biles has won three straight world championships in floor exercise, and she is eager to test out her new routine — and to assess the audience’s reaction.
“It definitely helps us whenever we land a tumbling pass and the crowd goes crazy,” she said. “It kind of gets our adrenaline going. They kind of help us do our routine because we don’t feel like we’re tired. We feel like, ‘Oh, my gosh, that gave me energy.’ We feed off the crowd’s energy so it’s always exciting, especially when they start clapping to your music.
“So I’m excited to do my new floor routine in Everett to see how people react, and especially when you finish it. If they cheer really loud, you can tell whether they liked it or not.”
Other than Biles, USA Gymnastics officials have yet to announce the members of the women’s team coming to Everett. But whoever they are, they’re likely to be on the U.S. team in Rio de Janeiro in August, where the Americans will try to extend an Olympic streak of six straight podium finishes in the team competition, including golds in 1996 and 2012.
The successes going back to 1992 are “definitely motivation to keep the U.S. going strong,” Biles said. “I think it’s good that the U.S. has kept it up all these years. But we have something big that we have to carry on our shoulders, so it’s also kind of stressful.
“The 2012 team definitely set the bar high, but I’m pretty confident that the U.S. team, whoever they choose to send (this year), will do a very good job of representing our country. It’s really exciting to carry that on and we’ll just see how it goes.”
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