Simone Biles once again ascended to the pinnacle of her sport, claiming her sixth career gold and second Olympic all-around title.
Biles (59.131) edged out Brazilian rival Rebeca Andrade, who will defend her all-around silver from Tokyo (57.932), and Tokyo Olympic all-around champion Suni Lee, who will take home the bronze (56.465) – marking the first time two Olympic all-around champions have landed on the same medal podium.
Only two other women in history have won the all-around title twice: Larisa Latynina (1956 and 1960) and Vera Caslavska (1964 and 1968), putting Biles in good company.
Biles’ victory keeps the American women’s all-around gold medal streak alive for the sixth consecutive Games – a streak that dates back to Carly Patterson who won gold in 2004.
At age 27, Biles is also the oldest female gymnast to achieve the feat in 72 years – second only to Maria Gorokhovskaya who won the title at age 30 during the 1952 Helsinki Games.
“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 following the competition. “Even at 7 a.m. this morning I saw my therapist … So just making sure I’m mentally well – I think you can see that out on the competition floor … At the end of the day it’s crazy that I’m in the conversation of greatest of all (time) athletes because I still think I’m Simone Biles from Spring, Texas who loves to flip.”
The world watched in awe as Biles, undeterred by past challenges and setbacks, delivered a performance for the ages in Paris.
Biles started her evening on vault, launching her eponymous Yurchenko double pike into the stratosphere for an early lead of 0.666 points.
Biles admitted after the competition that she originally wasn’t planning to compete the Yurchenko double pike, but ultimately decided she could benefit from the score boost to distance herself from Andrade.
“I don’t want to compete with Rebeca no more – I’m tired,” Biles joked. “She’s way too close. I’ve never had an athlete that close, so it definitely put me on my toes and it brought out the best athlete (in me) … I’m getting uncomfortable guys! I was stressing.”
In the second rotation, Biles mistimed her Pak Salto on the uneven bars. As a result, she had a large knee bend and also took an extra swing to get her rhythm back.
“I’m not sure what the camera caught or what I was doing,” Biles said. “I was probably praying to every single God out there; trying to refocus and re-center myself because that’s not the bars that I’ve been training. Out of all the events, I think bars is the one I haven’t messed up once the whole entire training here or back in Houston. So just refocusing and making sure that as soon as we go to beam, since I’m first up, I can just re-center myself and finish the rest of the competition because its not over until its over.”
Biles temporarily slipped in the standings, but rallied back on balance beam and sealed the deal with an electric floor routine in the final rotation.
Andrade, who is widely considered to be Biles’ biggest rival, is riding a high after helping lead Team Brazil to an historic team bronze medal. Andrade started the competition with a stuck Cheng and didn’t look back, locking in her fourth career Olympic medal.
“I’m just very happy and grateful,” Andrade said. “It was a tough competition. It’s very difficult to have three days of competition (qualification, team final and then the individual all-around), but I’m very happy with how I performed.”
The journey back to the all-around medal podium has been a battle for Lee, who was diagnosed with two types of kidney diseases in early 2023. At one point, Lee was told by a doctor she would likely never do gymnastics again, so returning to compete in her second Games is a remarkable feat in and of itself.
Now she is leaving with her fifth Olympic medal.
“It’s taken so much,” Lee said. “I was telling everyone today I really didn’t even think I’d get on the podium, so it’s crazy that I was here and I did everything I could. I told myself not to put any pressure on myself because I didn’t want to think about the past Olympics or trying to prove anything to anybody, because I just wanted to prove to myself that I could do it because I didn’t think that I could.
