Hello, Debi Thomas would like to be acknowledged for her world championship, power moves and skating-while-black.
Gabby Douglas would like to be acknowledged for being the first African-American all-around gold medalist in gymnastics. Mary Lou Retton would liked to be acknowledged for being the "baby bull" of American gymnastics back in 1984 and showing that power wins.
One of the things that irritates me is that the true groundbreakers in sports are getting forgotten because they don't fit the storyline that gets built up.
Yes, they were ground breakers, but none of the above wins came without controversy, per se, and none at the level of sheer dominance of Biles.
Mary Lou Retton would have been swept under the Rug by Baraksnova and Mostepanova had the Iron Curtain not boycotted in retaliation of the Moscow games.
Douglas had a great win in London, but some still do argue that they could have easily gave the win to Komova, especially with the scoring rise Gabby was given on both her Uneven Bars and Balance beam routines, compared to other scores for equal routines across competition segments. She also lucked her way into the AA finals, as she could have been scored even more harshly for her floor in Team Qualifications, and Jordyn Wieber had an overall tentative day. And this is coming from a big Gabby Fan.
Yes, Debi Thomas fully earned her worlds win, but again, did not Keep that level of skating after the worlds win.
I am not one of these 4 years, Olympic bandwagon fans. I have been watching Figure skating religiously since Albertville, and Gymnastics since the 1991 Indianapolis worlds, and have not missed a worlds for either sport since.
In the above situations that you express were groundbreaking, were wonderful for each sport, but not COMPLETELY breaking the mold, as I inferred in my post. There has not been a quad of sheer dominance by one athlete in either sport, without stiff competition, EXCEPT Biles. Retton had Ecaterina Szabo, and would have had both Soviets, except politics. Debi had Katarina Witt. Gabrielle Douglas had Viktoria Komova. Biles had no one. Even on her weakest apparatus, Uneven Bars, she was good enough to make a Worlds final, in 2013, and placed 4th. The other three apparatus, she medaled in every world and Olympic final she participated in.
I understand that the Biles storyline was built TF up on NBC prior to the Games. My statement still stands.
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She is 16 years old, so the choice of music is OK for me after seeing a very tiny Russian girl of 13 years old doing "Chicago" in junior circuits (really uncomfortable to watch). The costume is somewhat reminiscent of Surya Bonaly's and I hope she builds her career as much as or more than Surya's.
