Following the culmination of the Selection Camp, in which 18 gymnasts took part, the list of athletes set to represent the United States at the World Gymnastics Championships was unveiled.
The competition will take place from 30 September to 8 October 2023 at the Antwerp Sports Palace, located in the Belgian city of Antwerp.
Gymnasts chosen by the USA Gymnastics committee will travel to both the World Championships and the Pan American Games. Both competitions provide an opportunity to score points towards qualifying for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
The selected athletes are: Simone Biles, Shilese Jones, Leanne Wong, Skye Blakely and Joscelyn Roberson, with Kayla DiCello as an alternate.
Simone Biles: The country’s most decorated athlete
Not to break with tradition, Simone Biles placed first in the selection camp and will be eligible to compete in her sixth world championship, the first woman to achieve such a feat.
The first one in which she participated (and won the gold medal) was in 2013. Being in the same city as this year, she said she feels nostalgic.
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“It’s a full circle moment,” she commented in a Tik Tok video.
She came in a few tenths ahead of Shilese Jones. The Ohio native earned a total score of 55.70, while Jones scored a 53.30.
Despite her fall on bars, the difficulty of the routines on other apparatuses, especially vault, where she performed a Yurchenko double pike, earned her the lead in the selection camp. She performed the same vault last month at the US National Championships.
