Simone Biles cruises to 9th national title and gives Olympic champ Sunisa Lee a boost along the way

By BILL GRAVES FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — There used to be a time when Simone Biles would find “beauty in the blindness” ahead of the Olympics, reveling in not knowing what she didn’t know. That was eight years ago. Back when she was still just a teenager. Still kind of “ditzy.” Those days are long gone. The evidence isn’t just on Biles drivers’ license or her marriage certificate but in how the now 27-year-old is able to see beyond herself. The tunnel vision that most great athletes have in pursuit of greatness has fallen away. And maybe that’s the biggest difference between the national title the gymnastics star won on Sunday night — her ninth, this one with an all-around total of 119.750 — and her first over a decade ago. The defining moment of Biles’ victory wasn’t a twist, a turn or a jump, but a walk. It came early on, when Biles watched 2020 Olympic champion and good friend Sunisa Lee spin awkwardly in the air during her vault and landed on her back, a mixture of surprise and fear spreading across her face. “I was kind of thinking that this was over,” Lee said. Then Biles...