A Seattle artist’s stop-motion video of Simone Biles, made out of paper cutouts of the top gymnast in the world, has gone viral and has caught the eye of Biles herself. It’s a celebration of the woman dubbed by many as the greatest of all time as she heads to her second Olympics in Tokyo this month.
Rudy Willingham’s video has received more than 50,000 likes and counting since being posted more than a week ago.
The video involves 100 images of Biles printed out on paper. Each image is one part of a Biles floor routine tumbling pass.
You see Biles’ face, hands and legs, but her leotard is cut out of the paper. Willingham put each piece of paper over a different background (such as the U.S. flag), so that each image has a different leotard.
Put each frame together, thanks to some video editing software that helped line everything up, and you get one fluid video with an ever-changing leotard, set to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.”
“The backgrounds are switching so fast that it almost forces your brain to focus on whatever is moving on the paper, and it turns into a kaleidoscope of color, a moving piece of art,” Willingham said, according to USA TODAY.
Biles reportedly reposted the video on her Instagram story.
Joining Biles on the 2020 U.S. women’s Olympics gymnastics team are first-time Olympians Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Grace McCallum, MyKayla Skinner and Jade Carey. Skinner and Carey will only compete in individual events while the other four will also be in the team competition. Carey earned her own spot through the World Cup circuit, separate from the Olympic trials.