*ESPN The Magazine has revealed its list of the 20 most dominant athletes of 2018, which includes LeBron Jamesand gymnast Simone Biles, who bagged the #1 spot as the most dominant athlete of the year.
The Olympic gold medalist recently became the first female gymnast to win four World Championships. She spoke out on “GMA” after it was announced that she would grace the cover of ESPN The Magazine’s blockbuster year-end issue.
“I didn’t think it was real,” Biles said of the honor. “I was like, ‘You’re joking.’”
OTHER NEWS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED: Simone Biles Takes Anxiety Medication to Cope with Larry Nassar Abuse [WATCH]
ESPN’s Charlotte Gibson noted: “Biles unleashed a historic display of athleticism at the world championships, winning her record fourth all-around title by her largest margin yet, leading the U.S. team to gold, again by a record margin, and taking four other medals. That made her the first U.S. gymnast to medal at every event at a world championship — and doing all that with a kidney stone, after spending the night before qualifying in the hospital. Not that you needed more, but she also ran the table at this year’s U.S. Classic, after taking a two-year hiatus from her four-golds-and-a-bronze triumph in Rio. She is truly unstoppable.”
According to the press release, here’s how the rankings were determined:
“ESPN The Magazine’s “Dominant 20″ list was created by pitting the year’s best against their top rivals with cold, hard math. The process started by grading the athletes by the strongest performance measures available in their sport over their most recently completed season (except F1 numbers, which are through November 11, and NFL numbers, which are through November 26), including timed scores, earnings and, wherever possible, advanced metrics. Then, to put those achievements into historical perspective, top athletes in a sport were compared to the best in their field each year since 1998, and results were adjusted to put those athletes onto one common baseline, yielding our ratings.”
The Olympic gold medalist recently revealed for the first time publicly that she’s been taking anxiety medicine since revealing she was sexually abused by disgraced sports doctor Larry Nassar.
“I’m on anxiety medicine now because I had a lot of ups and downs throughout the year and trying to figure out what was wrong,” Biles said Tuesday on “Good Morning America.” “I go to therapy pretty regularly.”
“It’s not easy but the people surrounding me are some of the best so it makes it a little easier,” she added.
Source Link: https://www.eurweb.com/2018/12/espn-names-simone-biles-most-dominant-athlete-of-2018/
Comments