The Good News Report: Simone Biles becomes the most decorated gymnast in World Championship history

Simone Biles became the most decorated gymnast in World Championship history after claiming gold in both the balance beam and floor competitions at the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart on Sunday.

She earned five gold medals alone at these championships, which is also believed to be another record-breaking achievement.

But it was the 29-year-old record held by male Belarusian gymnast Vitaly Scherbo which Biles had her mind set on this weekend, and despite having less medal opportunities as a female gymnast (men compete on six pieces of apparatus, women on four) Biles nevertheless beat the record.

She already held the record for the most career gold medals before the tournament, but upped it to 19 over the weekend.

An all-female ensemble of pilots, ground crew and airport staff worked together to fly 120 girls from Salt Lake City to the NASA headquarters in Houston this week to celebrate International Girls in Aviation Day.

The flight, which was organised by Delta Airlines, was part of their fifth-annual WING initiative (“Women Inspiring our Next Generation), which works to close the gender gap in aviation.

The program began as an effort to diversify the male-dominated industry and encourage more girls to pursue STEM-related careers, and has since seen 600 female students between the ages of 12-18 complete the flight.

Once they’d arrived in Houston, the girls toured NASA’s Mission Control Centre, and got to know female technicians and engineers who work in the space exploration and aviation industries.

Greta Thunberg’s world-famous UN speech made an unlikely appearance at one of Fatboy Slim’s gigs earlier this week, when the DJ sampled the teenage activist’s words in a truly iconic remix.

In her speech, Thunberg uses the words “right here, right now,” which happen to form the title of one of Slim’s hits. Using this premise as the source for the spin-off, the DJ then went on to play Thunberg’s speech on top of the song’s recognisable beat. 

Sesame Street’s new character Karli is helping children whose parents are struggling with addiction feel less alone.

The little green muppet with yellow hair explains how she was in foster care because her mum had a “grown-up problem” which she now attends therapy to address. In a conversation with two of the shows other characters, Karli discusses how her mum goes to a group because she “needs help learning how to take better care of herself”. 

Karli was introduced to Sesame Street earlier this year to represent children in foster care. 

Kenyan athlete Eliud Kipchoge became the first human to run a sub-two hour marathon this weekend after he completed the distance in 1 hour and 59 minutes in Vienna. 

Although the run will not be recorded as a new world record time because it was not in open competition and Kipchoge used a team of rotating pacemakers, the event will still go down in history as the first time any person completed a marathon in under two hours.

The pace Kipchoge had to maintain to come in under the two hour mark was equivalent to running 100m every 17.08 seconds - 422 times in a row. 

“This shows no-one is limited,” Kipchoge told the BBC. “Now I’ve done it, I am expecting more people to do it after me.”

Images: Getty/Delta