Simone Biles is a lock for the US gymnastics team. Then it gets complicated

Never before has the US had so many seasoned gymnasts going for the same team as it seeks redemption for a shock loss in Tokyo.

Simone Biles after the US Gymnastics Championships in Fort Worth, Texas. Picture: Getty Images

The US has an Olympic-sized gymnastics conundrum ahead of the Paris Games: Never before has it had quite so many seasoned gymnasts all going for the same five-woman team.

After this weekend’s US Championships in Fort Worth, Texas, with one month to go until Olympic team trials, the leading candidates are starting to come into view.

It won’t come as much of a surprise to learn that Simone Biles is set to head up the squad. On Sunday she took her ninth US all-around title, and all four apparatus titles too, extending a run in which she has been unbeaten in domestic and international all-around competition since making her comeback last year.

Picking the other four gymnasts for the long world-dominant US women’s teams, which is looking to reclaim its Olympic team title after suffering its only major international loss in a decade in Tokyo, is far trickier. US selectors are trying to make a quintet from which they will put up three gymnasts on each apparatus in the team final.

The US depth at the moment is such that selectors could fill an entire five-woman team with gymnasts sent to Tokyo for the Olympics in 2021: Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles and alternates Kayla DiCello and Leanne Wong, all of whom are all aiming for Paris.

Apart from Biles, all of them started competing in college gymnastics after Tokyo — a direct response to NCAA endorsement rule changes that has lengthened careers and contributed to the crowding at the top.

That’s because the US could also pull from a roster of experienced competitors who have not yet been to the Games, or college, including Shilese Jones and Skye Blakely.

Jones emerged after Tokyo as one of the best all-around gymnasts in the world, taking a silver medal at the world championships in 2022 and a bronze in 2023. She has been thought to have a near-lock on the second spot on the team after Biles, with the ability to also put up strong scores on the balance beam, floor exercise, uneven bars and vault. On Friday, though, she pulled out of the national championships with a shoulder injury, saying she thought it would be best to prioritise her recovery “to ensure I’m at full strength for Trials.”

The surest shot at making Team USA for anyone not named Simone Biles or Shilese Jones was always going to come through being the next-best all-around gymnast in America — over multiple days.

So far, the 19-year-old Blakely is winning that contest, with two steady days in which she debuted a Cheng vault, and had top-3 performances on beam and uneven bars, to finish second in the US all-around.

One bad outing for DiCello on the uneven bars on Sunday, and frustrating slips for Chiles on floor on Friday and beam on Sunday, put them behind Blakely in this competition-within-a-competition. Wong fared worse, finishing eighth all-around. But there may still be room for at least one more all-arounder.

The other option for US selectors is to complete the team with gymnasts who are globally competitive on two events, and could take individual Olympic medals there as well.

That’s a description that includes Lee, the reigning Olympic all-around champion, whose training in the last year has been hampered by two kidney diseases and who is trying to build toward peaking in July. In finishing second behind Biles on beam, and fourth on uneven bars with two clean routines that are nowhere close to her maximum difficulty, she put down a sizeable down payment ahead of trials in her hometown of Minneapolis.

It’s also a way to talk about Carey, the Olympic floor champion, and a strong vaulter. Carey has been trying to pace herself after completing a full NCAA season through April, and is also holding back on some of her hardest skills until next month.

Skye Blakely, Biles and third place in the all-around competition, Kayla DiCello. Picture: Getty Images

Team selectors say that national championships are a first phase in deciding which high-flying contenders are the most consistent and on an upswing.

“It’s how they can perform over a few days of competition,” said Chellsie Memmel, one of the national team leaders. “It’s going to be a puzzle.” At one point the US could have entertained the idea of three Olympic all-around champions all on the same team, with 2012 champion Gabby Douglas pursuing a comeback bid that ended abruptly ahead of the US championships.

Douglas says she’s now eyeing the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028 — a sign that the field for those Games may be just as packed.

The Wall Street Journal