World champion, Rebeca Andrade has Simone Biles ahead in the fight for bi – 09/30/2023 – Sport

The Artistic Gymnastics World Championship, which began this Saturday (30), in Antwerp, Belgium, with the first men’s qualifiers, marks the return of the biggest name in the history of the sport to international competitions. American Simone Biles, 26, returns after a period of absence for mental health reasons and wants to regain her throne.

In his absence, Rebeca Andrade sat in it. Overall individual champion at last year’s World Cup, in the English city of Liverpool, the 24-year-old Brazilian has top quality competition in the fight for bi. But she has avoided thinking of the tournament as a duel with Biles and claims that her fight is only with herself, for the best performance.

“The result is a consequence of all my work, of everything we go through in training. If I only think about the medal, I don’t focus on what I need to do at the time, it ends up getting in my way. I worked a lot with my psychologist because I thought it would be useless if I didn’t win a medal, if I didn’t get on the podium. Your head needs to be good”, he said.

The São Paulo native from Guarulhos did not participate in many events in 2023. In the Absolute Brazilian Championship, she spared herself from the ground and did not participate in the all-around. She was champion on bars and beam. Then, at the Paris stage of the World Cup, she competed on bars and won silver, satisfied with her performance: “I’m ready for everything I’ve been working on.”

And she’s been working on a new solo performance. After a successful cycle in which she displayed synchronized choreography to the funk notes “Baile de Favela”, she will now perform acrobatics with musical references from “pop divas”, as she stated, with excerpts from hits by singers Beyoncé and Anitta.

Regardless of the song, Rebeca has already shown that her success was not a “one-hit wonder” fluke. At the Tokyo Olympic Games, held in 2021, she won silver in the all-around competition and gold in the jump. Then, at the World Championships that year, she won gold on vault and silver on bars. At the 2022 World Championships, in addition to the all-around gold, she took bronze on floor exercise.

It was in Tokyo that Biles gave up competing for most of the medals. Faced with “twisties”, as moments of loss of body perception are called, terrifying during gymnastics pirouettes, she spent two years away from competitions to take care of her mental health.

When he was able to return, he proved to be Simone Biles. Winner of the individual all-around for the eighth time at the United States national championship, the US Classic, she easily defeated Shilese Jones, 21 – overall silver at last year’s World Championship, just behind Rebeca. And she also triumphed on bars and floor exercise.

“It’s just gymnastics,” he said, containing his excitement. “Personal goals and things like that, I think sometimes it’s good to keep them to ourselves, just so nobody can throw it in our face, ‘Oh, well, that was your goal, and you didn’t achieve it.’ where it’s, like, ‘Hey, leave me alone.’ So, one thing at a time.”

Don’t treat Simone’s words as a portrait of a lack of ambition. The American from Ohio knows she is the greatest gymnast in history and intends to expand her already fantastic numbers.

She has 25 World Cup medals, 19 gold. She will become the oldest to participate in the tournament for the United States in more than half a century and the first in the country in six editions. The first was in Antwerp in 2013, at the age of 16.

“It’s a complete cycle. Back to where it all began”, said the star, in a phrase that applies to her and to the championship itself, held for the first time 120 years ago, also in Antwerp – at the time, under another name and only with men.

Simone will try to nail the fifth Biles movement in Belgium. In gymnastics, when someone establishes an unprecedented action, they name it. The athlete has already completed the “Yurchenko Double Pike” complex in competition in the United States, but needs to complete it in an international jump to receive recognition.

Confidence, as you can see, is not lacking, despite the humble words. The behavior, in this sense, has some similarity to that of Rebeca.