INDIANAPOLIS — Simone Biles still isn’t the problem.
Having learned nothing from the mocking it got two years ago, when it unfairly punished the world’s greatest gymnast for its own bad choices, the International Gymnastics Federation is poised to do it all over again. Only this time, it will be the entire world asking just what the FIG is thinking.
On Saturday night, Biles became the first woman to compete a Yurchenko double pike, a vault so difficult few men even attempt it. She is pushing the boundaries of her sport and, much like Michael Phelps’ quest for eight swimming gold medals in Beijing, Biles’ efforts to challenge the notion of what’s possible will be all the talk of the Tokyo Olympics.
Yet, based on guidance from the FIG, judges at the U.S. Classic gave her new vault a start value – the measure of its difficulty – of just 6.6 points.
