MINNEAPOLIS — The expletive wasn’t audible amid the cheering at Target Center, nor heard on NBC’s television coverage. But it was clearly visible on the jumbotron as Simone Biles walked away from the balance beam Friday night, evidence of the frustration she felt after a shaky routine at the U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials .
That score, and a bit of rotational happenstance, briefly left the world’s greatest gymnast in second place.
“She was very, very pissed,” her coach Laurent Landi said.
None of it lasted very long, of course. Biles proceeded to drop a masterful floor routine and another one of her iconic Yurchenko double pikes on vault, drawing a standing ovation from the crowd. By the end of the night, she was 2.5 points clear of the rest of the field and roughly 48 hours away from her third trip to the Summer Olympic Games.
That Biles is atop the leaderboard after the first night of trials, with a score of 58.900, is hardly a surprise given her recent performances and general dominance. The interesting part was that, unlike some of her recent meets, she had to block out some metaphorical noise Friday night to get there.