The Sports Report: Inside Simone Biles’ most jaw-dropping skill
Howdy, I’m your host, Iliana Limón Romero, filling in for Houston Mitchell, who is probably collecting his free Jumbo Jack following the Dodgers’ win.
Starting this morning, we will be sending you two daily newsletter emails — The Sports Report: Olympics Edition arriving at 4 a.m. PDT and The Sports Report arriving at 4:30 a.m. PDT. As the names suggest, one will be your guide ot the Paris Olympics and the other will focus on domestic sports news.
Before we formally split the two newsletters, we’re showcasing one final Olympics story we think is special.
And now, let’s get right to the news.
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From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: The most decorated gymnast ever sprints down the vault runway. She tumbles gracefully onto the springboard, flings herself backward onto the vault table and pops off the surface. Soaring through the air, she folds her body in half and grabs the back of her legs for two head-over-heels flips.
The crowd erupts when Simone Biles stomps her feet into the mat.
Another successful Yurchenko double pike.
“It just makes your mouth drop open every time,” said UCLA gymnastics coach Janelle McDonald, who sat in the front row next to the vault landing area at the U.S. Olympic trials, where Biles competed her signature vault.
Of the five skills in the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) code of points named after Biles, her most recent vault — the Yurchenko double pike — has become the most iconic.
It’s the first major leap in vault innovation for women’s artistic gymnastics in two decades. When leveling up the sky-high event used to mean extra twists, Biles flipped the game upside down. She was the first woman to attempt her double-flipping skill in competition and completed it in international competition for the first time at the 2023 World Championships, earning its name as the Biles II.
“Simone made impossible an opinion with that vault,” NBC analyst John Roethlisberger said on the telecast during the U.S. Olympic trials.
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RAMS
From Gary Klein: It came down to the final minutes.
The Rams kept pushing back coach Sean McVay’s first training camp news conference at Loyola Marymount on Tuesday by an hour. Then another. Then another.
McVay and Rams executives were locked in talks with quarterback Matthew Stafford and his agent about a contract adjustment that Stafford had sought since the end of last season.
Finally, the Rams and the 15-year veteran agreed to terms of an adjustment that is not an extension, McVay said, declining to provide details of the deal.
“I am relieved that it got done,” McVay said in an understatement.
DODGERS
From Jack Harris: The Dodgers sent the message Monday.
By designating veteran pitcher James Paxton for assignment, the team sent a clear indication of its faith in its pitching staff’s youngest arms.
Much could change between now and next week’s trade deadline, but for the time being the Dodgers are rolling with a young rotation, one that includes four rookies in Gavin Stone, Justin Wrobleski, River Ryan and Landon Knack (in addition to veterans Tyler Glasnow and Clayton Kershaw, who will return from the injured list this week.
Knack was on the mound Tuesday in the Dodgers’ 5-2 win against the San Francisco Giants, continuing his strong rookie season by giving up one run in five innings in front of 52,627 at Dodger Stadium.
The victory was the Dodgers’ fifth in a row coming out of the All-Star break, and was keyed by RBI doubles from Gavin Lux in the first inning and Shohei Ohtani in the fourth. Ohtani also added an RBI single in the eighth, finishing the night second in the NL with 73 RBIs.
But Knack might have had the most effective performance — providing the kind of stress-free production the Dodgers will need from their young pitchers as they await reinforcements in the coming months (when Walker Buehler, Bobby Miller and Yoshinobu Yamamoto are all expected back).
“With young pitchers, the hard part is the unknown, the volatility and you can run a guy out there and he can’t throw strikes and can’t get through the second inning and then that kind of lingers for the next handful of days,” manager Dave Roberts said. “But the young guys that we’ve had this year, they’ve gone out and competed and thrown strikes and gave us valuable innings. It hasn’t blown up our bullpen.”
ANGELS
From the Associated Press: José Soriano gave up one run in 7⅔ innings, Luis Rengifo delivered a key two-run single in his return from the injured list, and the Angels beat the Seattle Mariners 5-1 on Tuesday night.
The Angels won for the sixth time in eight games thanks to another strong pitching performance from Soriano (6-7), who pitched more than seven innings and threw 100 pitches for the first time this season.
“He was outstanding and we needed everything he gave us,” Angels manager Ron Washington said. “He was able to go out there and have some nice innings. He did a tremendous job because we needed (him) to go as deep as he went.”
MORE ANGELS
Mike Trout exits first rehab start early because of knee soreness
From Ben Bolch: A giant, inflatable Oregon Duck mascot drifted down the White River on Tuesday, not far from where Big Ten Conference coaches, players and executives converged for the opening day of their annual media event.
It was not an interloper from some faraway place. It was home.
Adding to the surreal feel, mannequins wearing the football jerseys of Oregon, UCLA, USC and Washington with Big Ten patches on the shoulder stood in a corridor on the bottom level of Lucas Oil Stadium alongside those of traditional conference heavyweights Michigan, Ohio State and Penn State.
After welcoming the four new members who officially will join the conference Aug. 2, Big Ten commissioner Tony Petitti accepted a reporter’s invitation to daydream about stacking the expanded, 12-team College Football Playoff with entrants from his inflated, 18-team conference.
“I’m trying to think about what the maximum is,” Petitti told The Times while leaning back in a black leather chair deep inside the massive football stadium where the Big Ten championship game will be held in December.
In theory, the Big Ten could field eight CFP teams as part of a format that gives spots to five conference champions and the next seven highest-ranked teams. The chances of that happening might be on par with Petitti being the next man to walk on the moon, but that didn’t stop the commissioner from smiling about the possibility on a day dedicated to celebrating the completion of a merger two years in the making.
THIS DATE IN SPORTS
1908 — John Hayes wins the Olympic marathon in a record of 2 hours, 55 minutes, 18.4 seconds. Italian Dorando Pietri is the first athlete to enter the stadium, but collapses several times before being disqualified when officials help him across the line.
1931 — Paavo Nurmi sets the world record at 2 miles in a meet at Helsinki, Finland, with a time of 8:59.6.
1960 — Jay Hebert beats Jim Ferrier by one stroke to win the PGA golf tournament.
1967 — Don January wins a playoff by two strokes over Don Massengale to win the PGA championship.
1970 — The International Lawn Tennis Association institutes the nine-point tiebreaker rule.
1976 — John Naber of the United States becomes the first swimmer to break the 2-minute barrier in the 200-meter backstroke at the Olympics in Montreal.
1976 — Mac Wilkins of the United States sets an Olympic record in the discus with a toss of 224 feet in Montreal.
1977 — Hollis Stacy wins the U.S. Women’s Open golf championship by two strokes over Nancy Lopez.
1979 — Boston Red Sox Carl Yastrzemski hits his 400th HR.
1998 — Tour de France riders, angered by the drug scandal that has dominated the event, protest by delaying the start of racing for two hours. Armin Meier, a member of the Festina team who was kicked off the tour the previous week, admits to a French radio station that he used a banned drug.
2005 — Lance Armstrong wins his seventh consecutive Tour de France. All of the titles are stripped in 2012 for doping.
2008 — Nancy Lieberman makes a one-game appearance for the Detroit Shock after the 50-year-old Hall-of-Famer signed a seven-day contract earlier in the day. Lieberman, finishes with two assists and two turnovers, surpassing her own record as the oldest player in WNBA history. Lieberman held the record playing at age 39 in 1997 while playing for the Phoenix Mercury.
2009 — Ron Hornaday Jr. holds off a late challenge from Mike Skinner to win the AAA Insurance 200, making him the first driver in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series to win four consecutive races.
2010 — Fourteen-year-old Jim Liu of Smithtown, N.Y., beats Justin Thomas of Goshen, Ky., 4 and 2 to become the youngest U.S. Junior Amateur champion. Liu, who turns 15 next month, is more than six months younger than Tiger Woods when he won the first of his three consecutive U.S. Junior Amateur titles in 1991.
2011 — Cadel Evans wins the Tour de France, becoming the first Australian champion in cycling’s greatest race.
2014 — Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice receives a two-game suspension from the NFL following his offseason arrest for domestic violence. The six-year veteran was arrested following a Feb. 15 altercation in Atlantic City, New Jersey, with then-fiancee Janay Palmer.
2016 — Chris Froome celebrates his third Tour de France title in four years. The British rider finishes safely at the back of the main pack during the final stage, arm-in-arm with his teammates during the mostly ceremonial final stage ending on the Champs-Elysees. Froome, who also won the Tour in 2013 and 2015, becomes the first rider to defend the title since Miguel Indurain won the last of his five straight in 1995. Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven consecutive titles for doping.
2019 — 19-year-old Hungarian swimmer Kristof Milak breaks Michael Phelps’ 10-year-old 200m butterfly record in a time of 1:50.73, 0.78s faster than Phelps.
2020 — The Toronto Blue Jays name Sahlen Field in Buffalo, N.Y. as their temporary home field for the season.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time...
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com, and follow me on Twitter at @latimeshouston. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Go beyond the scoreboard
Get the latest on L.A.'s teams in the daily Sports Report newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
