Armour: Simone Biles takes first step toward history in women's all-around

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Grab the popcorn and settle in. The Simone Show is just getting started.

She’s already got one gold medal, having led the Final Five to the team title. Now it’s a question of how many more she’ll have by the time gymnastics at the Rio Olympics wrap up next Tuesday. Three? Four? A record five?

Enough to merit her own spot in the medals table, for sure. The Republic of Simone, ranking somewhere between Canada and Sweden, perhaps. (Though they're going to need every sport on the program to keep pace with her.)

“I go into (the all-around) knowing that” Biles will win, said Aly Raisman, who joins her fellow American in Thursday night’s all-around final after finishing second to her in qualifying.

“Just because she wins every single competition.”

That’s not an exaggeration, an overstatement or even a challenge. For three years now, every all-around competition she’s entered, Biles has won. She has four titles from the U.S. championships. She’s won the all-around title at each of the last three world championships, along with seven other gold medals.

Those 10 golds, by the way? A record for the world championships.

So there’s no reason to think the Olympics will be any different. All-around, balance beam, floor exercise, vault – just give her the golds, all of them.

A valet to carry them all home, too.

“I think if we hit our sets, we’re very capable of medaling,” Biles said. “But it just comes down to the day.”

Uh-huh.

Biles didn’t become the best gymnast of her generation, maybe of all time, by being cocky or arrogant. For much of the last two years, her stock answer when asked about Rio was that she just hoped she made the team.Never mind that there was as much a chance of leaving her home as USA Swimming deciding it didn’t need that Michael Phelps guy.

But whether Biles is willing to acknowledge it, her greatness is, in large part, a given. Just look at the numbers. Her routines are packed with so much difficulty that she starts competitions a point or two ahead, meaning she’d have to make mistakes or be sloppy in order for someone else to have a chance.

Except she never does and rarely is.

Take Tuesday night’s floor exercise final. The U.S. women went into their final event with such a big lead Biles could have walked around the floor for 90 seconds and the Americans still would have won. No need to try and be perfect, the Americans told each other, just do your regular routines.

For Biles, that meant a routine that earned a score of 15.8, fifth-highest of the entire meet. She was the only gymnast to score above a 9.0 for execution on floor, earning a 9.1.

“I think her tumbling was sky-high,” said Martha Karolyi, national team coordinator. “I think it was the best tumbling what I ever saw in women’s gymnastics, honestly.”

Actually, take out “tumbling” and it would be just as accurate.

Biles has already tied the record for most world titles by a woman and is the first to win three in a row. Should she win five golds, she will top Larisa Latynina (1956), Vera Caslavska (1968) and Ecaterina Szabo (1984) for most by a gymnast at a single games.

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And the debate about whether she is the best gymnast ever will be settled, once and for all.

“She’s so good. She pushes it. She’s just special – the best gymnast I’ve ever seen in my lifetime,” said Mary Lou Retton, the first U.S. woman to win the Olympic all-around title.

“She’s going to have that Olympic title. She’s just got to show up.”

Biles is only 4-foot-8, so small she worries about getting “stepped on” in the Olympic village. By the time these Games are over, however, no other female athlete will stand taller.

PHOTOS: IMAGES FROM AUG. 11 AT THE RIO OLYMPICS