Simone Biles had laid siege upon the gymnastics throne since her comeback in 2023. With successive victories in the national and world championships, her coronation day draws near. However, before she is proclaimed once more as the gymnastics queen, Biles must acquire more hardware in Paris. While her final exultation awaits in the French metropolis a recent turn of events in the PMAC has elicited a smile from the legend.
Simone Biles trains in her family-owned gym in Texas alongside a group of young rising talents in the sport. Recently, during the LSU versus Ohio State meet, a fellow trainee-turned-Tiger brought a stellar victory for Olivia Dunne’s squad.
Simone Biles’ gymmate steals the show
The excitement for the No. 3 LSU Tigers gymnastics team usually stems from Olivia Dunne taking the mat. The social media sensation is a tumbling legend to boot with a number of mindblowing tricks and flips up her sleeves. However, during the Tigers’ battle with Ohio State on Friday evening, the spotlight was on a certain debutante. Amari Drayton who until very recently trained with the seven time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles at the World Champions Centre occupied the center stage with her exceptional performance. LSU Gymnastics felt convinced of her talent and hyped her debut performance with an X post. Captioning, “ALLOW US TO FORMALLY INTRODUCE AMARI DRAYTON The freshman scores a 9.925!” the University posted a video of her impressive routine. Surprisingly, Simone Biles reposted the video on X and claimed her as one of her own.
Biles wrote, “that’s our girl 🥹💜🐯 so proud of you amari” to let everyone know of their kinship. LSU’s win came at a small margin with a total point of 196.975 against Ohio State’ 196.775. Amari Drayton was a contributing factor in this win but it was possible in the wake of a last minute shuffle.
Amari Drayton secures spot in surprising twist
The LSU Tigers had planned Kiya Johnson as the last gymnast for the floor routine. However, at the last moment she needed to drop her name out of the contention. The LSU coach then put Amari Drayton’s name up to replace her. As the anchor for the Tigers, Drayton secured 9.925 points in her debut performance.
Earlier KJ Johnson has scored 9.850 points on the floor. With Drayton’s high score, this was dropped from the leaderboard. With Amari Drayton’s score bolstering the total team score, the Tigers finished the championship with an all-time high score in any event.
