Olympic gymnast Simone Biles made gymnastics history on Friday night, as she was the first to ever attempt and land a double twisting, double somersault dismount off the balance beam.
According to TeamUsa.org, the skill will be named after Biles once she competes with the dismount at an international meet — on Friday, she landed it at the 2019 U.S. Gymnastics Championships in Kansas City, Missouri. It would mark the third skill named after her.
“I’m really happy with the beam dismount and how it’s come along, because if you had asked me after [U.S. Classic] if I was going to compete it, I would’ve said no,” Biles said, according to Team USA. “I feel like in those short two weeks we did a lot of work on a couple of the events, so I’m pretty excited with how it turned out.”
Biles made history again in an earlier heat by becoming the first woman to perform a triple-double in a floor exercise, E! Online reported. However, Team USA noted that upon landing, she fell forward. According to the New York Times, judges ruled she had completed the element despite the tumble.
“It was too much, and for the triple-double you kind of need to lean back a little, and I went straight up and straight down, so that’s why I did that and then put my hand down,” she said.
Biles, the four-time Olympic gold memedalist and 14-time world champion, finished the first night of the two-night meet with a score of 58.650, 1.75 ahead of second-place Sunisa Lee.
See below for a video of the performance.
??’? WAIT FOR IT ??’?@Simone_Biles is the first person in history to perform this dismount and ??’? SHE ??’? NAILED ??’? IT. #USGymChamps pic.twitter.com/l7vVInxMJv
— #TokyoOlympics (@NBCOlympics) August 10, 2019