Pauline Schaefer-Betz asks Simone Biles if she can perform the gymnastics element named after the German
German artistic gymnast Pauline Schaefer-Betz has asked the legendary Simone Biles if she can perform the Schaefer element named after her.
Schaefer-Betz has bagged three medals in balance beam at the World Championships, including a gold in 2017, a silver medal in 2021, a bronze medal in 2015, and one bronze medal in team event in the European Championships in 2022 so far.
She competed at the 2014 World Championships held in Nanning, China. She was the final reserve for the team but did not qualify for the final. Even after this, the 26-year-old went on to execute a new element executing a sideways salto tucked with ½ turn (180°) take off from one leg to side stand. The element was then named after her as Side somi 1/2.
The gymnast recently shared a video of herself on social media performing the skill and asking Simone Biles if she could perform it.
"Are you already able to do it?" she wrote and tagged Biles.
The German gymnast even added a GIF of Biles and wrote:
"#goat"
Biles clinched four gold medals and one silver medal at the recently held 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Belgium, Antwerp. She earned the gold medals in team, individual all-around, balance beam, and floor exercise, and the silver medal in vault.
5 gymnastics elements named after Simone Biles
Simone Biles' career is nothing less than extraordinary. She has five gymnastics elements named after her, including one on the balance beam, two on the floor exercise, and two on the vault.
She earned the most difficult aerial element to perform, the Yurchenko double pike, named after her as Biles II in Antwerp. At the 2018 World Championship qualifications, she performed the Yurchenko half-on with two twists on the vault to be named after her. She displayed the double layout with a half twist at her first World Artistic Gymnastic Championships in 2013 in Antwerp, when she was only 16 years old.
At the 2019 World Championships, she successfully executed the triple-twisting double backflip and got it named after herself. At the same event, she dismounted the double twisting double backflip on the balance beam to be named after her.
Biles returned to Antwerp 10 years after the 2013 World Championships, where she had won two gold, one silver, and one bronze medal.