She’s widely considered the greatest female gymnast of all time. And on Saturday, following a 732-day hiatus, American Simone Biles reminded the world why when she returned to elite competition in Hoffman Estates, Illinois at the U.S. Classic.
She didn’t just win. She won with a brand new routine on the floor exercise that used the instrumental to “Unicorn” — Noa Kirel’s Eurovision 2023 song for Israel.
You’ll remember that “Unicorn” won the Rest of World vote during May’s competition. It would seem the unicorn love is still going strong over in the U.S.
Simone was competing in her first meet since the Tokyo Games where, despite being the heavy favourite, she withdrew during the team competition owing to her battle with the so-called “twisties.”
No such problem in Illinois. Wearing a black-and-white leotard, Simone unleashed her inner unicorn as she nailed all three of her tumbling passes. They looked absolutely effortless, even as she pulled some of the most daring moves in the discipline.
Simone isn’t, of course, the first gymnast to turn to Eurovision for inspiration on the floor. Fellow American Olympian Jordyn Wieber famously performed to Ruslana’s “Wild Dances” at the London 2012 Olympics.
What do you think of Simone’s music choice? Are you as in love as we are? Let us know down below!
I think Simone and Noa are both phenomen-phenomen-phenomenal!
Off topic, but Duncan Laurence’s winning 2019 song “Arcade” hit a major milestone today: the first Eurovision song to reach 1 billion streams on Spotify
Of Course the American Byles sings A Israeli Song …. Propaganda.
Dude, its not that deep
Another bit of news that doesn’t relate to the article. Portugal has confirmed they will participate in Eurovision 2024, which makes it their first appearance in a Sweden hosted Eurovision since 1992.
That’s some Greek drama right there!
The instrumental of Unicorn really shows off what a poorly constructed ‘song’ it is. Such a waste for a talented singer and performer.
“She’s widely considered the greatest female gymnast of all time.”
Calm down now, gymnastics have gone soft over the years, none of today’s gymnasts can perform anything near as flawless, as gymnasts from 70’s and 80’s.
Really? Gymnastics used to be more aesthetically pleasing, but certainly not harder. Today’s movements are much more complex, and the routines are much faster. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, I won’t give my opinion. But you can’t say gymnastics have gone soft.
if you think that routine was “soft” then I hope you never see mine!
There’s nothing more pathetic than to witness a anonymous couch potato trying to belittle an multiple Olympic champion. Does it make you feel like you worth something? Because it’s just sad.
Proof that Unicorn is underrated! I always preferred it to SloMo for some reason.
Whether it’s gymnastics or figure skating, I always love it when I hear your vision music being used for routines. Somebody should do a compilation.
Jordyn killed it! The song fit so perfectly to her movies and the timing. I didn’t necessarily liked Simones performance much, and perhaps the instrumental version of “Unicorn” wasn’t the right choice. It sounded bland without Noa’s voice.
Unfortunately for gymnastics no lyrics are allowed in the floor routine music
That used to be the case for figure skating, that all disciplines, apart from ice dancing, cannot use songs with lyrics for routines, but that has changed and songs with lyrics are now permitted.