Now that the Core Hydration Classic and Xfinity US Gymnastics Championships are done, all attention will shift to Minneapolis. This month, the Olympic trials will choose five gymnasts from a pool of 16 for the US women’s national gymnastics team that will ultimately go to Paris. Of course, people expect Simone Biles to be the first name to enter without a hassle. But what if that’s not the case?

Well, the gymnast from Texas had some great performances recently: 59.500 in Hartford and 119.750 in Fort Worth. But while she has been basking in all the attention, Shilese Jones was rising resiliently. And this is something people are starting to notice. A Reddit post on May 5 revealed that Jones has a higher chance over Simone Biles and others to make it big in the upcoming days.

The statement is backed by the recent hit rates of Shilese Jones, who stands tall compared to Simone Biles. The principal logic behind this is she does not have a “very large deduction” (-1 point in E score) in a single skill. The consistency in the performance also has some weightage in the hit rate.

According to USAG, consistency refers to the “percentage of hit routines at any official international assignment or national event during the 2023-2024 competitive season and/or qualification events mentioned in sections 1.2.1 and 1.2.2” in the USA Gymnastics Athlete Selection Procedures document for 2024 Olympic Games.

The Reddit post considered hit rates from September 2023 to June 2024 in favor of the argument. Roughly, this period includes the competitions from the 2023 Worlds to last week’s US Championships. During this window, Shilese Jones had a hit rate of 92% compared to Simone Biles’ 88.235%.

Notably, in this duration, Shilese Jones has had staggering numbers in the world championships and national championships. At the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships 2023, Jones secured a bronze (56.332) in the all-around event and in the uneven bars (14.766). In the same event, Simone faced a fall in the vault during her signature Yurchenko Double Pike. She over-rotated and fell backward onto the mat. She cleanly landed her second vault, a twisting Cheng, with a small hop to the side. Riding on these, she secured a silver (14.549) losing out the top position (14.75) to Rebeca Andrade of Brazil.

In the just-concluded Xfinity US Championships also Simone fell during the double back-flipping vault that’s named after her. It had been her first vault that night. Surprisingly, she maintained her lead despite the fall and it could be because of the extremeness of the routine. While Shilese Jones had to pull out of the event for her shoulder injury, she maintained a thorough run at the Core Hydration Classic. 

The former Gator sailed through the complexities of the uneven bars schedule at the Core Hydration Classic a few weeks ago when many elite gymnasts including Gabby Douglas faced disappointing falls. That earned Shilese Jones the all-around silver with 57.650 and also collected bars gold with an impressive 15.250 on the apparatus. With such a track record in the recent past, fans are eager to see her going against Simone Biles in the upcoming trials. And they did not miss the fact that Shilese Jones has consistently been the closest competitor to Simone Biles lately.

Simone Biles or Shilese Jones? The battle between the best! 

Noting that, one Reddit user commented, “I understand that rationale for Shi – who has been the closest thing to a lock after Simone for the past 2 years. Shi had nothing to prove or gain.” Fans counted Shilese’s coach Sarah Korngold’s decision as valuable as the coach kept the gymnast away from exhaustion for this duration.

 The results have been visible in Shilese Jones’s performances. Lauding that a fan commented: “What Sarah Korngold said about why Shilese didn’t go for international assignments actually makes sense — that due to flights, going to Doha would mean missing literally four days of training just through being in the air.” But when there is Simone Biles standing, nobody can ignore her dominance. One does not have to do much recalling for evidence.

Despite her second-place finish behind Simone Biles in Core Hydration Classic, Shilese Jones’ all-around score was almost two points away from that of Simone. So according to a fan, “Consistency is relative when you’re Simone Biles”. But for all these years, Shilese has resolutely established herself as the second-most important gymnast in Team USA after Simone Biles.

On the way to this, no one can forget last September’s world team trials. Shilese almost defeated Simone Biles on that occasion. She would have if she repeated either of her bar scores from nationals that year. Unfortunately, her feet hit the mat during her set, costing her more than a point and the title.

Shilese Jones has come a long way to achieve this, battling injuries that hampered her career big time after the 2022 World Championships. After a long break of ten months, she came to the competition floor at the 2023 U.S. Gymnastics Championships. Since then, she has been on a roll. This transformation did not go unnoticed by the fans, as one wrote, “I just love this because the (somewhat valid) line on her pre-2022 was “Shilese is so inconsistent and can’t be trusted”. Nonetheless, the trial result will decide the ultimate winner between these two luminaries. 

That was reflected in a fan’s comment: “I’d be very interested to see the hit rates for just the events each of those gymnasts would likely to be used on in a team final.” Both the gymnasts will stand tall irrespective of the trial result, surely. But according to the fans, Shilese Jones might throw an extra challenge toward Simone Biles on the penultimate day.