More than the Simone Biles show: What to watch for at U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials

The first name is easy. It’s filling in the competitors after Simone Biles on the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team that could be a historically difficult task.

“More than any other year, I think there’s a lot of variables this quad,” NBC gymnastics analyst Samantha Peszek said ahead of this week’s U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials.

An unprecedented mix of veterans and promising newcomers, especially on the women’s side, makes this week’s trials at the Target Center in Minneapolis, Minn., one of the most competitive in recent history. With Biles’ name written in Sharpie at the top of the roster, a committee led by former U.S. gymnast Alicia Sacramone Quinn will select five athletes to compete in Paris for the United States’ third Olympic gold in the last four Games. The U.S. men, who begin competition at trials Thursday at 3:30 p.m. PDT, are hoping to build off a bronze medal at the 2023 world championships and contend for their first Olympic medal since 2008.

Here’s what to look for during the U.S. Olympic trials:

Simone Biles competes on the uneven bars during the gymnastics world championships in October.

(Virginia Mayo / Associated Press)

Barring injuries, the 27-year-old should be a lock for her third Olympic Games. After her shocking withdrawal from the Tokyo Games, Biles is not only back, but she might be better than ever. She won her ninth U.S. all-around championship on June 2 while also winning all four individual events. Her first-day all-around score of 60.45 was the highest in the world for the current Olympic quad.

The women’s competition begins Friday at 4:30 p.m. PDT and ends Sunday at 5 p.m. PDT.

Shilese Jones competes on the beam at the gymnastics world championships in October.

(Geert vanden Wijngaert / Associated Press)

Shilese Jones, 21, is likely to earn her first Olympic berth after winning all-around bronze in the 2023 world championships. She finished second in the all-around at the U.S. Classic, but sat out of the national championships because of a shoulder injury. If healthy, “she’s a shoo-in,” said Peszek, who helped the United States to an Olympic silver medal in 2008.

Skye Blakely, a two-time world team gold medalist, made a statement at the national championship meet with a second-place all-around finish. Already a strong competitor on bars and beam, the 19-year-old boosted her Olympic bid by debuting an upgraded vault that earned her six-tenths more in difficulty points. It was the first time she had performed the Cheng vault onto a hard landing surface, Blakely told reporters.

After serving as an alternate in Tokyo, Kayla DiCello took a year off of college gymnastics at Florida to prepare for an Olympic bid. She announced her contention by winning the Winter Cup in February and finished third in the all-around at the U.S. championships.

Sunisa Lee competes on the beam during the U.S. gymnastics championships in May.

(Jim Cowsert / Associated Press)

In a sport long defined by teenaged Olympic champions, the United States could be on track for one of its oldest women’s teams in history with several gymnasts vying for a second Olympic berth.

Reigning Olympic all-around champion Sunisa Lee battled back from two kidney diseases to put herself in contention for a repeat bid. In her first elite all-around competition since Tokyo, the former Auburn star finished fourth at the U.S. Championships, shaking off a mistake on vault in the second day to still win beam, where she had the highest difficulty score among all competitors on the event.

Tokyo floor gold medalist Jade Carey and team silver medalist Jordan Chiles took opposing paths to prepare for the Games as Carey stayed at Oregon State while Chiles took a year off from UCLA. Chiles had the second-highest Day 2 all-around score at the U.S. championships and finished fifth despite a fall on beam. Carey finished seventh.

Jade Carey competes on the vault during the U.S. gymnastics championships on June 2.

(Julio Cortez / Associated Press)

Settling on the five-person Olympic team isn’t as simple as just taking the top-five finishers at trials.

The all-around champion after two days of competition automatically earns a place on the Olympic team while the final four spots are at the discretion of the selection committee. Considering performances in international assignments from the last year and domestic events in 2024, the committee will try to optimize the team’s scoring potential by weighing solid all-around competition against individual event specialists.

World-class bars and beam difficulty could help Lee and Blakely earn roster spots over consistent all-around gymnasts such as Chiles, DiCello or her Florida teammate Leanne Wong. Carey’s candidacy relies mostly on floor and vault, but she’ll be in direct competition for the limited role with 18-year-old Joscelyn Roberson, whose combined difficulty on the second day of Championships was the second-highest of any competitor after Biles.

Brody Malone competes on the rings during the U.S. gymnastics championships on June 1.

(Tony Gutierrez / Associated Press)

Brody Malone is peaking at the right time after a gruesome knee injury threatened to end his gymnastics career. The 2022 high bar world champion needed three surgeries to repair a tibial plateau fracture, cartilage damage and multiple torn ligaments sustained when he peeled off the high bar at a meet in Germany in 2023. He did not compete for more than a year and made a triumphant return to all-around competition at the U.S. championships, where he won his third national title.

The United States is hoping to build on a bronze medal at the 2023 world championships, the team’s first world medal since 2014. The result was a coming out party for a young team that featured four of five athletes who were still competing in college. The 27-year-old Yul Moldauer, who hopes to return for his second Olympic Games, was the oldest competitor on the team, leading Michigan stars Paul Juda, 22, and Fred Richard, 20, as well as Stanford’s Asher Hong, 20, and Khoi Young, 21.

“We’re going to be very deadly,” Richard told reporters after the U.S. championships, where he finished second in the all-around. “This is going to be a fun Olympics. … We are fully loaded, stronger than I’ve ever seen the U.S. in years so I think we can look for medals.”