Emotional growth, if not physical, helps Biles excel

ARLINGTON - She's the biggest thing in the world of women's gymnastics, but Spring's Simone Biles wants to be bigger.

It's a goal that extends beyond the competition floor at AT&T Stadium, as Biles, 17, will be the focal point Saturday of a nine-women field at the International Gymnastics Federation's American Cup competition.

Part of it is simple teenage vanity - the desire to cast a larger spotlight on the stadium's giant video board.

"I say I'm 4 feet 9, but I know I'm 4-8," she said, smiling. "Every person my height always has to up it by one. It makes us feel better."

When Biles feels better, she performs better. With back-to-back world and national all-around championships, she's on a fast track toward the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.

And here's the potentially disheartening kicker for her opponents Saturday and those to come: Ten weeks into the new year, she's better than she was as a world champion in 2014.

"Every day she can surprise me with something new," said Aimee Boorman, Biles' coach at the Biles family's World Champions Centre in south Montgomery County. "She's already better than she was last year. She just keeps growing emotionally, which is a big part of it.

"She's talented. Everybody can see she's talented. There are more skills she can do, but it's that emotional growth in which she is really taking responsibility for her role in gymnastics right now."

The American Cup is Biles' first major competition of 2015, the potentially critical year before the 2016 Games - an event she knows is coming but avoids discussing at practically any cost.

Staying grounded

"It's so hard to think about because anything can happen," she said. "I don't want to get too far ahead of myself and start thinking about it, because that's when the stress comes in. I like to keep it meet by meet and see how it goes.

"I know (Rio) will come sooner than we think, but in the meantime it will go slow."

Biles' attitude about the day-to-day grind of the sport fits in with the plain-spoken realities espoused by her coach and by Martha Karolyi, the longtime women's national team coordinator for USA Gymnastics.

"Even if you win two world championships, it can't be like your head grows bigger or your nose goes too high," Karolyi said. "I remind everybody that gymnastics, it's never like 'I get to the top and I'm there. I finished my job because I climbed to the top of the mountain.'

"It's so easy to fall from the top of the mountain. You have to work, and you have to have the same discipline you had before."

That mindset isn't easy to attain and maintain in this era of entitlement, but Boorman said Biles takes nothing for granted, sometimes to an extent that mystifies her admirers.

"People make fun of her for saying 'I hope to make the world team,' and say 'Are you serious?' But that is how you train," Boorman said. "Every competition, every training camp, you have to prove yourself. You have to prove you're ready.

"At this time last year (when she withdrew from the American Cup with a shoulder injury), she wasn't ready. Who knows what will happen next year? We go day to day and live in the moment."

After the American Cup, Biles will compete in an event in Italy and then buckle down for the final stretch of classes of her senior year in high school. And even though she is home-schooled, a touch of senioritis is setting in.

Normalcy a good thing

As classes wind down, training will ramp up. She and Boorman are working on a new floor exercise routine to carry through the national championships this year and into the Olympics year. Even when she finishes school, her workday will continue until 5:30 p.m.

But she doesn't labor alone. World Champions Centre, the gym started last year by Biles' parents, Ron and Nellie Biles, has 90 students at its temporary quarters. Work continues on a new gym in the Spring area the family hopes will open this year.

In the meantime, she's looking for normalcy amid the practice and the attention and the acclaim that accompanies her recent accomplishments.

"I'm still Simone. I'm the same as everyone out there," she said. "Even friends on Face Time say, 'Oh, it's Simone Biles, two-time world champion.' I say, 'Guys, I'm still Simone.' Nothing has changed. Keeping it normal is good for me."