Simone Biles leads dominant U.S. to gold in Olympic gymnastics team competition
Simone Biles’ ideal warmup is a therapy session. Tuesday morning, the 30-time world medalist told her therapist she felt calm and ready for her first Olympic team final since she shocked the world for all the wrong reasons in Tokyo three years ago.
The statement felt like the truth for Biles until just before she prepared to vault. The intrusive thoughts started creeping in. In 2021, she also started the meet on vault. She feared a flashback.
Then when her feet hit the ground after a successful routine, Biles smiled. Not yet joyful, the expression was one of relief.
“Yeah,” Biles thought to herself, “definitely, we’re going to do this.”
The United States followed Biles to long-awaited redemption Tuesday, dominating the women’s team final to reclaim the Olympic gold medal at Bercy Arena.
Finishing with an untouchable 171.296 score after Biles clinched the victory on floor, the Americans ran across the arena and raised the U.S. flag to all sides. They posed for photos shoulder to shoulder while holding the flag behind them. Three years after she walked off the competition floor in Tokyo flanked by concerned coaches and trainers, Biles was at the center of the celebration.
“Everything that she has been through was so worth it,” said U.S. head coach Cecile Landi, who has coached Biles since 2017. “And today, she just proved to herself most importantly that she is still top of the world.”
Biles collected her eighth Olympic medal, making her the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast, passing Shannon Miller’s seven medals. The 27-year-old can add to her medal haul this week in the all-around, vault, beam and floor finals.
Biles and fellow Tokyo Olympians Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey labeled their Paris campaign “the redemption tour.” Each started to rewrite their stories during Tuesday’s final.
Carey, who balked on one of her vaults in the event final in Tokyo, nailed her vault Tuesday in her only routine of the competition. The reigning Olympic floor champion was battling illness this week and was held out of the floor lineup.
In Carey’s floor position, Lee shined. The 2021 Olympic all-around champion who fought back from two kidney diseases last year began her routine with a nearly perfect full-twisting double-layout that left a permanent smile on her face for the rest of the routine that backed up strong sets on bars and beam.
Chiles, who fell in both qualifying and team finals in Tokyo, rocked qualifications to earn a spot in the all-around during the team final. She bounced back from a fall on beam Tuesday with an energetic floor routine that had a sold-out arena clapping along to her Beyoncé music.
“It was just teamwork,” U.S. technical lead Chellsie Memmel said.
The collective effort led the United States to a nearly six-point margin over silver medalist Italy. Brazil won its first team medal in women’s gymnastics, taking bronze. The Americans accomplished the landslide victory with some watered-down routines including Lee's straightforward straddle split mount on the beam instead of a high-flying round-off, back layout. Biles performed a vault that was worth eight-tenths of a point less than her eponymous double-flipping skill.
But the Americans did not need the extra risk. Not only is Biles' Yurchenko double pike a more difficult skill physically than the Cheng she performed, it is more mentally taxing, Landi said.
After wilting under the suffocating silence of the crowd-less Tokyo Games, the U.S. gymnasts soaked up the energy from a loud, pro-U.S. arena. American flags waved in every corner as the United States rotated to each event. Stars including Serena Wiliams, Michael Phelps, Natalie Portman, Nicole Kidman, Spike Lee and Nadia Comaneci were in attendance for one of the most in-demand tickets of the Games. Gymnasts pumped their fists as fans chanted, “U-S-A!”
The loudest chants came after Biles finished her floor routine with a towering double layout. Her teammates jumped in the air in unison when Biles landed her tumbling pass. She saluted the judges while blowing a kiss to the crowd as some fans wore T-shirts with the Olympic rings, each U.S. gymnast’s picture and the single word “redemption” printed underneath.
Read more: Science of Simone: The forces behind her iconic Yurchenko double pike
“It speaks volumes of her strength and what she was able to come back from with the whole world watching and the world watching with a magnifying glass,” Memmel said. “We all knew she could do it. That wasn't ever a question in my mind that she could do it. It continues to just solidify her place as the greatest gymnast of all time.”
Biles’ influence on the sport goes beyond just her medal collection — 38 world and Olympic medals — or how she is rewriting the code of points with a potential sixth eponymous skill arriving this week. She recalled Tuesday when she first arrived at U.S. national team camps, gymnasts were all expected to train with quiet diligence. Laughing and chitchat were not tolerated. That didn’t lead to success.
Sharing inside jokes and laughs as they sat on the press conference dais, Biles and her teammates showed exactly what champions can look like.
“We,” Biles said, “don't have to be put in the box anymore.”
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
