"The Redemption Tour" ended in a familiar spot for Simone Biles: atop the Olympic podium. Again. The American gymnastics star and her singular brilliance powered a dominant US women's team to all-around gold in the finals inside a raucous Bercy Arena on Tuesday night. With Biles at her show-stopping best, the Americans' total of 171.296 was well clear of Italy and Brazil and the exclamation point of a yearlong run in which Biles has cemented her legacy as the greatest ever in her sport, and among the best in the history of the Olympics, reports the AP.
The outcome—the Americans on top with the rest of the world looking up — was not in doubt from the moment Jordan Chiles began the night by drilling her double-twisting Yurchenko vault. By the time Biles, the left calf that bothered her during qualifying heavily taped, stepped onto the floor for the final event—a floor exercise set to music by Taylor Swift and Beyonce—her fifth Olympic gold medal was well in hand. The 27-year-old provided the exclamation point anyway, sealing the Americans' third gold in its last four trips to the Games.
Three years after removing herself from the same competition to protect herself—a decision that changed the conversation around mental health in sports—Biles pushed her medal total in major competition to a staggering 38 and counting. But she hardly did it alone. Suni Lee and Chiles were on the team that earned silver in Tokyo with Biles watching from the sideline. They navigated a series of setbacks both physical and personal to return to this moment and get the gold they so badly wanted.
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And there they were on the biggest stage, Chiles doing all four rotations as Lee dazzled on beam and uneven bars, her two best events. Jade Carey won the floor exercise in Tokyo, but did it with an asterisk of sorts. She was with Team USA in Tokyo but not actually part of the official four-woman squad. She vowed to write a different ending this time, and the Cheng vault she did on the first rotation scored a 14.800—second only to Biles—to give the US a commanding lead before Biles even saluted the judges. The only real drama centered on who would finish next to the Americans on the medal stand. Italy, which was a surprising second to the US during qualifying, earned its first Olympic team medal since 1928 by holding off Brazil, which took bronze for its first medal in the biggest event in the sport. (More 2024 Paris Olympics stories.)
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