DOHA (Qatar) • If Thursday was a "disappointing off-day" for Simone Biles, it is no wonder why the perfectionist is considered to be the greatest gymnast of her generation.
The American overcame a series of uncharacteristic mistakes at the World Gymnastics Championships in Doha to become the first woman to win four all-around world titles.
Yesterday, the 21-year-old added the vault title - her score of 15.366 well ahead of the Canadian Shallon Olsen's 14.516 - to become the first 13-gold winner. She surpassed the 12 that Belarus' male gymnast Vitaly Scherbo set in 1996, a year before she was born.
In the all-around, despite falls on the balance beam and vault, Biles scored 57.491 points, seeing off Mai Murakami, who finished 1.693 behind for silver.
Compatriot Morgan Hurd, last year's world champion in Biles' absence, was 0.066 behind the Japanese for bronze.
The margin of victory, even accounting for Biles' first falls in more than 60 career routines at the Olympics or world championships, was the largest of her world titles.
She has finished first in every meet she has entered since the 2013 USA Gymnastics national championships, although this one was slightly tighter than usual.
Biles, who took a year off after winning four gold medals at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, acknowledged as much, saying: "This one has probably been the hardest to get out of all my world championships and Olympic medals, and the scariest one.
"It's exciting to bring back a gold medal for the US but, for me, that's not the performance I would hope to give."
Afterwards, she tweeted an "apology" to her fans: "Didn't mean to give everyone a heart attack. I won't do that again."
In the end, however, it was Biles against herself. Not content to simply rely on her remarkable talent, she is intent on pushing the sport forward.
It is an approach that leads her to put together the most difficult routines and gives her basically a head start in every meet because her start values are so high.
But, for once, she needed the cushion to pull through.
She came into the all-around final at the height of her powers after anchoring the US to their fourth straight team gold despite battling a kidney stone, which she jokingly dubbed "the Doha pearl".
Most meets with Biles typically start the same. She drills the vault before spending the next three rotations simply padding her lead to margins that look like typos.
Though her miscues this time gave the rest of the field a small opening, no one could capitalise and the meet ended the way they have always finished for the last five years when she was involved - with her atop the podium.
She will have three more opportunities for silverware in the apparatus finals and can become the first woman to win six world championship medals since Yelena Shushunova's feat for the Soviet Union in 1987.
With 17 world medals, Biles is now just three behind the Russian Svetlana Khorkina's record of 20.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, THE GUARDIAN
