Morning Splash: The Ascension of Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Editorial Coverage Sponsored By FINIS

By David Rieder

She is just 19 years old, but she’s been dominant in her sport the past four years, redefining the limits of what anyone thought was possible. Heading into the Olympics in Rio, she is expected to walk away with a full collection of medals. She figures to return to the U.S. very much a household name.

Sounds like Katie Ledecky, right? Well, yes—the world record-holder in the 400, 800 and 1500 free fits all of these criteria, but one of the Summer Olympics’ other marquee sports has its own young superstar who is expected to win plenty of medals next month in Rio.

That would be Simone Biles, the gymnast who is heavily favored to win gold in the team competition, the individual all-around, balance beam and floor exercise—and could also finish atop the podium in vault.

Biles has won four gold medals at the World Championships each of the last two years. Her performance at last year’s event in Glasgow earned her a nomination for the ESPY award for top female athlete of the past year along with Ledecky. Both figure to be among the stars of NBC’s Olympic coverage in the United States.

Those that follow swimming closely have learned to not be surprised by anything Ledecky can do. Few predicted her to even make the U.S. Olympic team in 2012, let alone to win gold—which she did, in a stunning upset over hometown favorite Rebecca Adlington. Her 400 free world title a year later—where she swam under 4:00 and posted the second-fastest effort in history—opened more eyes.

But most startling of all was Ledecky’s rise to prominence in the 200 free.

Sure, great distance swimmers have come before, but Ledecky’s range is almost unprecedented. She beat out a loaded field to win the World title in the 200 free in 2015, becoming the first person to ever sweep the 200, 400, 800 and 1500 gold medals at a World Championships.

Unlike Ledecky, 15-year-old Biles was not in London four years ago as gymnastics does not allow women younger than 16 into its senior level competitions. The so-called “Fierce Five” of Gabby Douglas, McKayla Maroney, Ally Raisman, Kyla Ross and Jordyn Wieber won team gold in London.

But in 2013, Biles arrived. Eligible for senior-level competition for the first time, Biles won gold medals in the all-around and then in floor exercise at the World Championships in Antwerp.

But in a sport where careers are so short and returning Olympians so rare, winning a World title right after the Olympics is seen as bad timing.

“Oh great, you’re the World Champion, but nobody cares,” said Will Graves, the lead gymnastics writer for the Associated Press. “They’re sort of placeholders until that next wave has come along.”

Turns out that Biles was that next wave. At the 2014 World Championships in Nanning, she defended her two titles and added gold medals in the team competition and on balance beam. Then she won all four a year later in Glasgow. Biles already has more World Championship gold medals in gymnastics than any other woman, and she has not lost an all-around competition in more than three years.

“Only once or twice in that stretch has somebody been within a half a point of her—which would be the equivalent of a touchdown in a football game,” Graves said.

Then there’s Ledecky, who won her two of her gold medals at the World Championships last year by more than 10 seconds.

Ledecky’s margins of victory in the pool are getting bigger, and she continues to lower her world records. In the gym, Biles has raised her scores each year. Her 60.399 in the all-around at last summer’s World Championship beat silver medalist Douglas by more than a point.

How? By making her routines more difficult.

Gymnastics is judged based on the difficulty of a specific routine (D-score) and the execution of that routine (E-score), and it’s not uncommon for gymnasts to intentionally take a lower D-score in hopes of performing that simpler routine better. Four-time U.S. men’s national champion Sam Mikulak was one who made that decision.

“He made a decision on his high bar routine to actually make it easier for him so that he can execute it better,” Graves said. “‘I’m going to lose half a point on my difficulty, but if I up it half a point on execution, then it sort of evens out, and I’m less likely to screw that up.’”

But Biles attempts moves much more difficult than anyone else in the world. Her D-scores are already so high, but more often than not she still executes.

“A fall is half a point [deduction]. She’s got so much cushion that she can fall off twice on a certain apparatus, have a major deduction and still be fine. Whereas for most gymnasts that would doom them, for her, it’s not a problem,” Graves said.

Does this sound familiar? Think back to Ledecky at Olympic Trials when she attacked both the 400 and 800 from the gun and swam well under world record-pace for much of the distance before fading. She made the work more difficult than it needed to be, and both final times were far from her best, but her cushion was so great that it did not matter.

Leah Smith actually finished less than two seconds behind Ledecky at Trials in the 400 free—improving to fourth all-time in the event in the process—and commented afterwards that it had been cool to actually see Ledecky’s feet. Laurie Hernandez, another of the five gymnasts who earned spots on the U.S. team bound for Rio, was similarly excited to be within a point of Biles halfway through competition at Olympic Trials.

Biles and Ledecky both have events where they could slip up—Biles in the vault, Ledecky the 200 free—but both have been so dominant in their other events that anything less than three golds each would be a true shocker. These two have redefined limits in their respective sports since 2013, and at the Olympics, the world will see the results.

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Peter

7 years ago

The judges now take a whole point (1.0) when the gymnast falls.

Matthew Boyle

7 years ago

Dear David,

I respectfully must correct you. Simone is the overwhelming favorite to win vault. As you write, gymnastics is scored by D scores and E scores. Simone is a two time vault silver medalist and once bronze medalist. At the time, she was competing a second vault that was .8 lower in difficulty than the other top two vaulters in the world, Hong Un Jong and Maria Paseka. She still came within .1 of their final scores because she executes vault that much better.

This year, she improved her second vault to match Paseka and Hong. She has posted all of he highest scores of the year on the Cheng vault so far this year. Of all the event finals, vault is the one Simone is MOST likely to win, not least.

The event final Simone is least likely to win is balance beam. You say she has the highest difficulty in the world, but she actually doesn’t. Flavia Saraiva and Sanne Wevers do with 6.9 to Simone’s 6.7. Moreover, Simone isn’t perfect on beam. She fell at US Trials Day 2, had a major wobble on Day 1, and had another major error at US Championships day 2. Meanwhile, Laurie Hernandez beat Simone on each of those days because her D score, while lower at 6.5, is still competitive, and she never misses.

I understand you, like most sports writers, assume Biles is a lock because she has won the past two beam world titles, while vault is risky because she hasn’t won previous vault titles. However, the fact that she even came close to winning vault with a routine that was .8 lower in difficulty speaks to how amazing Simone is at vault. It is unquestionably her best event, and she is right there with McKayla as the best vaulter in history. As a gym fan, it just irritates me when people get the likelihood of Simone’s medal wins incorrect. Beam is the event Simone might not win, rather than vault. She’s going to win vault. She might not win beam.