[imagesource: AP]

Simone Biles is widely regarded as the greatest female gymnast of all time.

After more than 18 months away from competition, Biles returned to action at the US Classic in Indianapolis on Saturday night, and she was straight back to winning ways.

Wearing a leotard adorned with a rhinestone goat (GOAT, for ‘greatest of all time’), Biles racked up an all-around score of 58,400, although that was not the aspect of her routine which grabbed the headlines.

She became the first female gymnast to land the Yurchenko double pike in competition, reports The Independent:

The highly difficult move involves Biles performing a backwards handspring onto the vault, followed by two backflips with straight legs and her hands clasping the back of her legs.

The US gymnast had so much momentum when she landed that she hopped back a step or two, and history was made:

Even the judge, seen in the bottom right of the image below, can’t resist clapping:

Biles’ score of 16,100 was higher than her gold medal vaults at the Rio 2016 Olympics, which should serve as another warning shot to her rivals.

Not that she was entirely delighted with how things played out:

After her performance Biles was critical of the sport’s points system, which rates the Yurchenko double pike only just ahead of far less difficult vaults…

“That’s on the [International Federation of Gymnastics], that’s not on me,” she added.

“They have an open-end code of points, and now they’re mad people are too far ahead and excelling.”

However the judges score things, you’d bet that Biles has a number of gold medals headed home with her after things wrap up in Tokyo later this year.

[source:independent]