Spring's Simone Biles Defends National Gynastics Title

SPRING, Texas -- Spring’s greatest export, Simone Biles, defended her title as the reigning national women’s gymnast, Saturday night in Pittsburgh, PA, at the U.S. Gymnastics competition. The petite Biles, could be said to be worth her weight in gold, and she adds another U.S. gold medal to her cache, which also includes gold for a world title, which she will defend in October at the World’s Gymnastics competition being hosted in Nanning, China.

Biles scored a total of 122.550 points for the two-day competition; four points more than her nearest competitor, Kyla Ross. Biles all-around title came as a result of posting the highest score on the floor exercise and vault, and the second-highest on balance beam. This is the second year in a row that Ross, the only member of the 2012 gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic team currently competing, has come in second to Biles.

Rounding out the top five...Maggie Nichols came in third, followed by Alyssa Baumann, and MyKayla Skinner.

The U.S. women's team coordinator, Martha Karolyi, wife of legendary gymnastics coach, Bela Karolyi, will be responsible for selecting the U.S. team to travel to China. No doubt, Biles will be on the top of her short list.

At 17 years of age, Biles is poised to add Olympic gold to her treasure chest, with the next summer Olympic games just two years away in 2016. In a sport where athletes peek in their mid-teens, better training methodologies are being attributed to athletes competing longer at higher, sustained levels of achievement.

The 2016 Summer Olympics will be held in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, August 5-21. Not only will Biles have a time zone advantage, since she now trains at World Champions Centre (WCC) in Riverview, Florida (just an hour difference in time from Rio de Janeiro), she’ll have had four years at the top of her sport. Her competitive advantage will be hard to beat.