No title for Simone Biles in 2020 as USA Gymnastics cancels national championship
USA Gymnastics canceled all top-tier events for 2020, including the national championship planned for next month, due to the COVID-19 crisis, the organization announced Tuesday. Simone Biles was going for her seventh all-around title in eight years.
The U.S. national championship was scheduled for June 4-7 in Fort Worth. The U.S. Classic, the final qualifying event for the championship, is also canceled. Officials hoped they could push the events back in the 2020 calendar year since the Tokyo Olympics were postponed. But in the end they decided to wipe the slate as many states still have stay-at-home orders in place.
"In light of recent guidance from health experts, and after receiving feedback from our athletes and coaches, we believe it is in the best interest of our community to wait until 2021 to hold premier events," USA Gymnastics chief executive officer Li Li Leung said in a statement.
The classic will now take place May 21, 2021, in Hartford, Connecticut. The national championship will be June 3-6 in Fort Worth. And a date for the Olympic trials that were scheduled for next month has not yet been determined. The Tokyo Olympics are set to begin July 23.
Biles, the reigning world and Olympic champion, was going for her seventh all-around national title in eight seasons. Her only missed chance was in 2017, when she took the season off after winning at the 2016 Rio Games.
The world’s most decorated gymnast planned to call it a career after the Tokyo Olympics. She has not said if she plans to participate in the 2021 games when she’ll be 24, older than any all-around gold medalist in Olympic history.
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