After days of injury scares, Simone Biles and her U.S. women’s artistic gymnastics teammates won gold in the team finals. First medal In the Paris 2024 Olympics It was an amazing comeback for the history-making athlete and for Team USA.
Italy finished second, finishing the finals with 165.494 points to 171.296 for the United States. It was Italy’s first Olympic medal in women’s gymnastics, and its first Olympic medal in gymnastics overall in nearly a century. Brazil won the bronze medal, just one point behind Italy.
GABRIEL BOYS/AFP via Getty Images
Women Artistic Gymnastics Team Final Held Tuesday at Bercy Arena, Biles competed alongside U.S. teammates Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Sunisa Lee. Biles competed on the uneven bars, vault, balance beam and floor exercise. It was a big event for the U.S. athletes, all of whom are returning to the Olympics this year after appearing at previous Games, and especially for Biles, who was forced to withdraw from competition in 2020 due to a serious mental block that led her to pull herself out of the race.
Team USA Egypt were the favourites to win the tournament, having won back-to-back gold medals at the London and Rio Summer Olympics in 2012 and 2016, and silver in the team event in Tokyo last time out.
Marijan Murad/Image Alliance via Getty Images
After impressive performances on vault, uneven bars and beam, Team USA performed the anticipated floor exercise in the fourth and final round of the gymnastics final. A trio of U.S. Olympic veterans were expected to lead the floor exercise, led by Biles, and all three did their part to rise to the occasion.
Lee was the first American gymnast to perform on the floor and completed a powerful display with evident enthusiasm as she left the mat. Her family cheered loudly from the stands, as did the rest of the stadium. Lee earned an impressive 13.9 points for the exercise, which is graded out of 14. Chiles also perfected her floor exercise, coming within a whisker of that perfect score with a score of 13.966.
Biles closed out the finals with a stunning floor routine that drew a standing ovation from the crowd. It was arguably the most anticipated performance of Tuesday’s team competition, and Biles delivered a performance that was nothing short of spectacular. Her performance featured several of Biles’ signature gymnastic moves, including her first ever eponymous floor routine, a double half-twist and a triple double tuck. The move cemented Team USA’s win before Biles’ score was revealed. She blew a kiss to the crowd as people chanted “USA!”
Earlier, Biles’s thrilling display drew a standing ovation from a packed crowd, including Olympic swimming legend Michael Phelps and filmmaker Spike Lee. Lee and Biles put on a strong performance on the beam, earning high marks after Chiles fell off the equipment during her beam demonstration that preceded theirs. Her fall was the only notable error by Team USA throughout the finals, as the Americans put on a world-class display that kept them ahead of their competitors in every round.
Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images
Team USA, which had the highest scores in the qualifying session over the weekend, competed in the final against gymnasts from seven other teams that placed higher in the qualifying rounds: Italy, China, Brazil, Japan, Canada, Great Britain and Romania. The finals call for three gymnasts from each team to compete in each gymnastics category.
Lee is the all-around champion. But in the team finals, the scores of all three gymnasts are considered together. This criteria makes the final particularly difficult, as it leaves little room for error by any competing athlete, which increases the stakes in the heats where all four gymnasts compete and the lowest-scoring athlete’s scores are removed from the team total.
Biles, 27, has made her highly anticipated comeback. Last weekend in Qualifying rounds She was able to control the match, despite a leg injury that caused her to limp. Women’s gymnastics coach Cecile Landy, a former Olympian for France, He told reporters After a rehab session, Biles had suffered a calf injury a few weeks earlier, and was on the mend.
The coach noted that Biles had no intention of leaving the tournament, saying: “It was never on her mind.”
GABRIEL BOYS/AFP via Getty Images
Team USA finished Sunday’s qualifying with an impressive score of 172.296, putting them at the top of the group heading into the final, with Biles herself leaving the qualifying as the top individual scorer among all competing teams.
Biles, widely regarded as the greatest gymnast of all time, or GOAT, is currently competing in her third Olympics. It’s her first since experiencing “twists,” a phenomenon in which gymnasts lose their sense of place in midair, which forced her to Withdraw from multiple events During the Tokyo Olympics.
With the win, Biles became the most decorated American gymnast in the Olympics, surpassing Shannon Miller’s seven medals, and it was the team’s eighth gold medal. She also tied Anton Heda, the 1904 Olympic gymnast, for the most gold medals won by an American gymnast.