Gymnast Simone Biles Is Damn Good and Will Dominate the Olympics

Simone Biles won her fourth straight gold medal in women’s gymnastics on Sunday and did it with ease while also breaking a decades-long record.

The 19-year-old earned her latest title at the P&G Championships in St. Louis and, with it, became the first woman to take home four all-around national titles in a row since Joan Moore Gnat in 1974.

Biles is the best and experts (including Olympic icon Mary Lou Retton) have ranked her as the top gold medal prospect for this year’s Rio Olympics. It’s easy to see why when you witness the agility and flawless landings in Biles’ floor routine below. NBC’s Tim Daggett thinks Biles “would crush everybody in Rio.”

Biles is not only killing it, but also has a carefree aura about her that seems to astonish people who consider gymnasts to be traditionally stoic and joyless. From The New York Times:

It’s hard to believe that someone so good is actually getting even better. Maybe that’s what has put her in such a sunny mood.

Biles smiled nearly the whole way through her floor exercise on both days of nationals, as if she were dancing barefoot on the lawn of her backyard, with no one watching. While waiting for her turn on the vault, she started laughing just seconds before sprinting down the runway. That’s just before she landed one of the world’s hardest vaults — an Amanar, which has one flip and two and a half twists. Judges awarded her effort with a near-flawless 9.9 for execution.

It’s just like when my yoga teacher tells us to “smile through the pain” and I scream internally. Biles knows what she does for a living is both incredibly intricate and fun.

After the win on Sunday, Biles told the Times, “People think you have to be serious to do a good job. But I think if you’re having fun, you can do better. You can look back someday and say, wow, I had a good time instead of being so stressed out.” Teach me…