Simone Biles has secured a spot on a record sixth World Championships team and is set to become the oldest US woman to compete at the World Championships in more than 50 years.
Biles, 26, won the all-around at the USA Gymnastics World Team Selection Camp in Katy, Texas, earning the first of six spots on the roster.
She scored 55.7 points to win by four tenths over Shilese Jones, despite falling on the first set (uneven bars) and the last set (Jurchenko double pike jump, falling backwards after finishing it with too much momentum).
Biles also scored lower on the beam and floor exercises than when she won her eighth U.S. all-around title last month.
MORE: Results of the selection camp
Biles had totals of 59.3 and 59.15 at nationals in August, plus a 59.1 at the earlier August meet, her first since the Tokyo Olympics. Those are the top three all-around world results since Tokyo, according to Gymternet.
Jones, the 2022 world all-around silver medalist, had a chance to become the second gymnast in a decade to top Biles in the one-day all-around after Suni Lee on the second day of the Tokyo Olympic trials.
Jones would have won if she repeated any of her top uneven scores from August’s nationals in her final set, but on Tuesday she scored a 13.5 (reportedly with a large deduction for her feet landing on the mat after 24 seconds of this video) after adding 14.9 and 15 last month.
The rest of the World Team will be selected by a committee and named after the second day of camp competition on Wednesday evening. One of the six will be designated as a substitute closer to the start of the worlds on October 1 in Antwerp, Belgium.
Biles, who last month became the oldest U.S. all-around champion in modern history, is now the oldest to make the world team since at least 1970, according to USA Gymnastics records. Doris Fuchs Brause started at the 1966 WC at the age of 28.
Competing in her sixth world championship, Biles would break her tie for the most world championship appearances by an American woman.
He currently shares the record with Dominique Dawes, Shannon Miller, Kerri Strug, Jonathan Horton, Danell Leyva, Sam Mikulak, Alex Naddour, John Roethlisberger and Donnell Whittenburg.
Other gymnasts in contention for the world team include all five members of the 2022 world roster: Jones, Tokyo Olympic medalists Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles, and Leanne Wong and Skye Blakely.
