| Simone Biles, the 19-year-old gymnastics phenom from Spring, Texas, cemented her position as the most dominant gymnast in the world on Thursday when she won the individual all-around competition in Rio. Biles outscored her nearest competitor, teammate Aly Raisman, by a mammoth margin of over 2 points.
Biles is the only woman to win world championships three years in a row, and has not lost a gymnastics meet since 2013. She was widely predicted to win the all-around competition at this summer’s Olympics, having qualified in first position and having been awarded the competition’s highest scores on three of four events in Monday’s team final, in which the U.S. won gold. Her all-around win is merely a confirmation of what gymnastics fans have known for several years: She is the best in the world, and probably the best of all time. Today’s final was less a competition than it was a coronation.
And for Raisman and Russian gymnast Aliya Mustafina, who took bronze, today’s real fight was for silver: No one in that gym was going to beat Simone Biles. As Aly Raisman has said, “Simone’s just in her own league. Whoever gets second place, that’s the winner.” | 
