With her sixth career gold and second Olympic all-around win, Simone Biles once again rose to the top of her sport.
Biles (59.131) defeated her competitor Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, who will retain her Tokyo all-around silver medal (57.932), and Suni Lee, the winner of the Tokyo all-around competition, who will take home the bronze (56.465).
This is the first time that two Olympic all-around winners have finished on the same medal podium.
Biles is in excellent company since there are just two other women in history who have won the all-around championship twice: Larisa Latynina in 1956 and 1960 and Vera Caslavska in 1964 and 1968.
For the sixth time in a row, Biles’ triumph extends the American women’s all-around gold medal run, which began with Carly Patterson’s 2004 triumph.
Second only to Maria Gorokhovskaya, who took home the championship at the age of 30 at the 1952 Helsinki Games, Biles, at 27, is the oldest female gymnast to accomplish the accomplishment in 72 years.
“Three years ago I never thought I’d step foot on a gymnastics floor again because of everything that had happened but with the help of Cecile and Laurent (Landi) I got back in the gym and worked really hard mentally and physically,” Biles said after the event.
“This morning, I visited my therapist even at 7 a.m. So I just want to make sure that my mental health is in check, which I believe is evident on the competition floor.
I still think of myself as Spring, Texas native Simone Biles, who likes to flip, so it’s weird that I’m in the discussion with the best athletes of all time.”
The world gazed in wonder as Biles gave a performance for the ages in Paris, unfazed by her prior difficulties and disappointments.
With an early lead of 0.666 points, Biles began her evening on vault by sending her named Yurchenko double pike soaring.
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After the competition, Biles said she had not planned to participate in the Yurchenko double pike at first, but she finally concluded that she could use the bonus points to put Andrade behind her.
“I don’t want to compete with Rebeca no more – I’m tired,” Biles said. She’s getting too near. It made me aware of my surroundings and brought out the best athlete in me since I’ve never had an athlete that close. I’m starting to feel uneasy, people! I was tensing up.”
During the second round, Biles executed her Pak Salto incorrectly because to the uneven bars. She bowed her knee a lot and took an additional stroke as a consequence to regain her rhythm.
“I’m not sure what the camera caught or what I was doing,” Biles said. Since those aren’t the bars I’ve been preparing for, I was presumably praying to every god known to man in an attempt to concentrate and re-center myself.
I believe that, of all the events, bars is the one that, throughout the whole training session here in Houston or elsewhere, I have never made a mistake.
Thus, I’m just concentrating and making sure that, because I’m first up, I can just concentrate and complete the remainder of the tournament since it’s never finished until it’s over.”
Although Biles’s ranking dropped momentarily, she managed to recover on the balance beam and completed an incredible floor routine in the last spin to secure the victory.
Andrade is having a great time after leading Team Brazil to a record team bronze medal. Andrade is generally regarded as Biles’ strongest opponent. Andrade locked in her fourth career Olympic gold from a stuck Cheng at the beginning of the tournament.
Andrade said, “I’m simply very happy and grateful.” It was a challenging competition. The three days of competition—the qualifying round, the team championship, and the individual all-around—are very challenging, but I’m pleased with my performance.”
After learning in early 2023 that he had two different renal illnesses, Lee’s road back to the all-around gold podium has been difficult.
Lee’s comeback to participate in her second Games is a remarkable achievement in and of itself, considering a doctor had warned her she would probably never perform gymnastics again.
Now that she has won five Olympic medals, she is departing.
It’s taken a lot, Lee said. It’s strange that I was here and that I tried my hardest, I told everyone today, since I honestly didn’t believe I’d get to the stage.
In order to show to myself that I could succeed since I didn’t believe I could, I told myself not to put any pressure on myself. I didn’t want to reflect back on the previous Olympics or attempt to prove anything to anybody.”
