At the very end of Tuesday’s team final at the Paris Games, even before Simone Biles had finished her dangerously difficult floor routine and the crowd roared in appreciation of the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast in history, the U.S. team knew that it had accomplished what it came here for.
And that was to reclaim the title of Olympic champion.
Led by Biles and the defending all-around champion, Sunisa Lee, the United States won the gold medal with a dominant performance of 171.296 points, finishing ahead of second-place Italy by almost 6 points. Brazil won the bronze.
Three years ago in Tokyo, the U.S. team won silver, behind the Russian team, after Biles withdrew from the event because of a mental block that made her disoriented in the air. It was the first time that the Americans didn’t finish in first place since 2008, when they won silver at the Beijing Games.
Since then, Biles and her Olympic teammates — Lee, Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera — resolved that these Paris Games would be their “redemption tour,” and they did more than just redeem themselves in the team final.
Biles said afterward that she did her best to be mentally prepared for what she expected would be a hard day, especially because the team would begin on vault, the apparatus that bedeviled her in Tokyo. “I started off with therapy this morning, so that was super exciting,” she said with a touch of sarcasm, before referring to her therapist. “And then I told her I was feeling calm and ready, and that’s kind of exactly what happened.”
As the event unfolded, the United States pulled further and further ahead, ending with Biles on the floor exercise. For the Americans, it was the perfect conclusion to the perfect night.
At her third Olympics and what could be her final Olympics, Biles smiled nearly throughout her whole routine. When she stuck the landing of her last tumbling pass, the crowd erupted in cheers and started chanting, “U-S-A! U-S-A!”
Before walking off the floor, she blew a kiss to the fans and waved her index finger in the air indicating that the United States, once again, was No. 1 in the world in women’s gymnastics.
“We had so many expectations on us this time,” Sunisa Lee said. “But I think we did exactly what we were supposed to. We went out there and we had fun with it, and I think that’s the most important thing.”
Biles said the team felt pressure to win gold similar to what it experienced at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and in Tokyo. In Rio, it came away with the gold, as expected. This time, she said, “we did what we were supposed to, but it just felt a little bit different.”
Simone Biles said she did her best to be mentally prepared for what she expected would be a hard day, especially because the team started out on vault, the apparatus she had trouble on in Tokyo.
“I started off with therapy this morning, so that was super exciting,” Biles said with a touch of sarcasm, before referring to her therapist. “And then I told her I was feeling calm and ready, and that’s kind of exactly what happened.”
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Credit...Chang W. Lee/The New York Times
Bedel Saget
Reporting from Paris
Sunisa Lee said she was nervous heading into her beam routine after Jordan Chiles’s fall. “But once I got up there, I started to actually calm down because it just felt like, I don’t know why, but I kind of took the pressure off myself,” she said.
Bedel Saget
Reporting from Paris
She continued: “Because I was like, you know what? This doesn’t have to be perfect. Just going to go up there and do what I normally do and remember to focus and breathe. And I think that’s exactly what I did. I went up there and I could feel myself getting a little rattled. But once I calmed down, I did probably one of the best beam routines that I could have done.”
Canqueteau-Landi said she stressed to the team to “just do their normal gymnastics” and ignore the pressure of the Olympics. “We know if they do the normal gymnastics, it should be good enough. And that’s what we really focused on. Don’t try to be special and try to be, you know, perfect.”
Cécile Canqueteau-Landi, one of Biles’s coaches, said that the team final on Tuesday couldn’t have been more different than the one in Tokyo. “Well, it’s been less stressful. Way more fun. And they end up with that wanted gold medal around their neck. So I’m just super happy for them.”
It’s official. With 171.296 points, the United States wins gold, 5.802 points ahead of second-place Italy and 6.799 points ahead of third-place Brazil.
Italy will win silver, its first Olympic team medal in women’s gymnastics since 1928. And, whoa!, Brazil, which was sixth after the last rotation, soared back to slip past Britain for the bronze.
Her namesake triple-double. Full-twisting front flip through to a double-double. Her original namesake skill, a double layout with a half twist. And a double layout to finish, almost stuck. That’s Simone Biles, and that’s the gold medal for the United States.
Angela Andreoli hit the final floor routine for Italy, and Alice Kinsella hit the final beam routine for Britain and immediately flew into her teammates’ arms, overjoyed.
Jordan Chiles just nailed her Beyoncé-inspired floor routine and looked overcome for a moment as she finished. She almost stuck her last pass, a double layout, which is a double back flip with a straight body.
Alice D’Amato of Italy steps out of bounds on her first tumbling pass on floor and has a bit of a stumble on her second, while Britain is looking rock solid on beam. The battle over silver and bronze could be really close.
The crowd absolutely erupts for Lee after her floor performance. I’m from her hometown, St. Paul, Minn., and I can tell you that I could practically feel the whole state cheering, too.
This is an event that Lee would almost certainly not be competing in at all today if Jade Carey hadn’t been ill and stumbled in qualifications. It’s always notable to see an athlete rise to an unexpected occasion — which Lee certainly has experience doing, having won the all-around title in 2021 after Simone Biles withdrew — and she did it so well.
Manila Esposito of Italy just barely salvaged one of her tumbling passes in an otherwise strong floor routine. She was supposed to do a front flip coming out of a twisting skill but was short and ended up touching the floor with one hand. That will mean a significant deduction, but still impressive to avoid the much larger deduction of a fall.
Andrade stayed on her feet through a very difficult routine — one that earned her a spot in the floor finals — but had a couple stumbles on her first landings. She still scored higher than she did in qualifying, though.
Sunisa Lee is striving for gold on the uneven bars.Credit...Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times
Sunisa Lee, the reigning Olympic all-around champion and one of four returning Olympians on the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, earned the chance to defend her title in Paris after a frightening year. At one point, she didn’t know whether she would ever compete again.
Lee, now 21, entered the Tokyo Olympics as a strong contender for a gold medal on uneven bars, and perhaps silver in the all-around, behind Simone Biles. But when Biles’s late withdrawal created a spot, Lee capitalized with a strong, steady performance to win the all-around gold, the most coveted title in gymnastics.
The next three years were difficult.
She was unprepared for the sudden fame gained by winning a title she had not expected to win. She was frustrated that, after securing bronze on bars, she did not win the title she had aimed to win. She began competing for Auburn University, but she felt ostracized by some of her teammates and unsafe on campus because of the level of attention she received, she recently told Sports Illustrated.
Then Lee developed a chronic kidney disease. Some days, her hands were too swollen to put grips on. She returned to elite competition last summer, but in the fall she had to withdraw from consideration for the world championships team because of the kidney disease.
But after the world championships, she and her doctors found a treatment regimen that brought her illness under control enough for her to resume tougher and more consistent training. By the time the Olympic trials ended in June, Lee was the second-best all-around gymnast competing, behind only Biles. She placed first on bars and led on beam after the first night of competition before dropping on the second night after a fall.
Lee, who during Tuesday’s team final is scheduled to compete on the uneven bars and balance beam, and in the floor exercise, wants to medal in the all-around again, and she is striving for gold on the bars. She faces stiff competition, especially from Qiu Qiyuan of China and Kaylia Nemour of Algeria, who won gold and silver in the event at last year’s world championships.
In pursuit of that uneven bars title, Lee has been training a difficult skill that no gymnast has competed before, taking a release move called a Jaeger and adding a full twist. If she does it successfully in Paris, the move will be named after her.
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Simone Biles and Hezly Rivera
