Why elite gymnasts move to Texas to train for the Tokyo Olympics

Elite gymnast Jordan Chiles took a big risk in the spring of 2019.

The Vancouver, Washington resident had considered switching gyms for months. She wanted to strengthen her 2020 Olympic hopes by training with a team and in an area known for international gymnastics success.

So Chiles and her mother Gina moved to Texas a few days after graduating from high school to train with Simone Biles at the Biles family gym, the World Champions Center, outside of Houston.

Two and a half weeks later, Chiles entered the US Classic, her debut as a Biles teammate, and she performed routines with a mix of persistence, difficulty, and joy she hadn’t shown before.

Call it the “Simone Biles Effect”.

In recent years, Olympic hopeful gymnasts have moved to Texas from all over the United States to train with Biles who is widely considered to be the most dominant and trailblazing gymnast in history. This trend will come into its own this weekend at the Metroplex at the US Championships in Fort Worth.

The spectators in the Dickies Arena during the two-day competition on Friday and Sunday – which will serve as qualification for the Olympic tests – will get one of the first legitimate looks at the contenders for the US women’s team.

The group that is set to make a big win in Tokyo this summer will likely include some Texas-trained, Biles-inspired members – in addition to Biles himself.

“She’s a role model,” said Chiles. “She is an idol for many. She’s an idol to me and it’s definitely a big deal to be by her side and go on this journey for her because I never in my life thought I’d do that, especially with someone like her. “

Elite gymnasts often train and compete on their own. In most years, fewer than 40 senior women qualify for national meetings.

Biles was the only representative of the World Champions Center at the 2016 National Championships and Olympic Trials, her last two national encounters before winning four gold medals and one bronze medal at the Rio Olympics.

After Biles canceled gymnastics in 2017 and changed coach because her former coach Aimee Boorman had moved from Texas, Biles returned in 2018 with new coaches Laurent and Cecile Landi, who trained Olympian Madison Kocian in the Dallas area in 2016 Sport back.

Then the migration started.

Ashton Locklear, a 2016 Olympic substitute from Hamlet, North Carolina, joined the World Champions Center in 2018.

Chiles, 20, followed in 2019.

In 2020, senior international Olivia Greaves, 17, left her gym in Morganville, New Jersey to work out with Biles.

Earlier this year, Sydney Barros, 16, who was at Texas Dreams Gymnastics in Coppell, did the same.

“I’ve been alone for so many years,” said Biles. “It’s like, we really are a team. We have this camaraderie. We cheer each other on. “

Six senior female gymnasts training at the World Champions Center, including Biles, will be competing in North Texas this weekend, most of them for a club.

Overall, almost a third (nine out of 30) of the gymnasts who qualified for the senior sessions train in Texas gyms. The other 21 come from 12 different states.

The five gymnasts of the junior and senior group of the World Olympic Gymnastics Academy based in Dallas, including the Olympic hope Skye Blakely, are the second largest contingent in a gym.

“It’s really amazing to have so many team-mates, especially in an Olympic year,” said Biles.

The reasons for moving to Texas are different.

Chiles, for example, was the only elite female gymnast in Washington, so her trainer encouraged her to switch gyms in order to have better chances of reaching the Olympics. Meanwhile, the former Greaves New Jersey coaches were suspended from USA Gymnastics for abusive behavior last year.

Regardless, an improvement in skills and presentation is often noticeable as soon as the gymnasts start training with Biles and the Landis.

Before she moved, Chiles had long been friends with Biles, and she dreamed of working with Biles one day when they were spending time together at national team training camps. She admired Biles’ bubbly personality and innovation at all four events.

But at the time, Chiles had only earned two international appearances and had never won a national tournament as a senior.

Two years later, she won the all-round title at the Winter Cup in February – the US’s first national meeting in the middle of the pandemic – and received dizzying messages of congratulations from Biles, who failed to make it.

At the end of May she finished second behind Biles in the US Classic, a position that many in the sport advertise as No. 1 in the “Non-Simone Division”.

Chiles has seen up close how Biles has worked to redefine the difficulty limits of the sport. You’ve developed a sister-like bond with encouragement – and a few humorous arguments – in and out of the gym.

With their own advances, Chiles is now well on the way to forming the four-man Olympic team.

That would almost guarantee she would be with Biles’ teammates – twice.

“Training with someone who is out of this world – no one can do what it is doing – it’s definitely motivating,” said Chiles. “I get motivated every day when I look at her because I just think, ‘Wow, you can literally do this and you’re perfectly fine. In my head I think, ‘If she can do this, I can do this.’

“She surprises me 24-7.”

Senior gymnasts compete with U.S. Nationals in Fort Worth who train in Texas clubs

Gymnast	Texas Club
Sydney Barros	World champions center
Simone Biles	World champions center
Skye Blakely	WOGA *
Jordan Chile	World champions center
Amari Drayton	World champions center
Karis German	World champions center
Emma Malabuyo	Texas Dreams Gymnastics *
Zoe Miller	World champions center
Katelyn Rosen	Mavericks gymnastics

* for gyms in the Dallas area

For more sports coverage from The Dallas Morning News, click here.