Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, showed on Thursday that she returned to the Olympic Games to regain the throne she lost in Tokyo 2020 after serious bouts of depression, by winning the gold medal in the All-Around or individual complete competition at Paris 2024, which places her on a par with the legendary Larisa Latynina and Vera Caslavska, until now the only double Olympic champions.
Biles is only the third gymnast in history to win a second individual all-around title, after Soviet Latynina (1956 and 1960) and Czechoslovakian Caslavska (1964 and 1968), but the first to do so at non-consecutive Olympic Games (2016 and 2024). In between, she withdrew midway through the competition at the 2020 Tokyo Games due to a mental health crisis.
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Not even Romanian Nadia Comaneci, champion in 1976 but runner-up in 1980, managed to achieve the double. The great Nadia was present at the Bercy Stadium for Biles’ victory, accompanied by the IOC president, the German Thomas Bach, who presented the medals.
Biles also extends the U.S. winning streak in this competition to six, all dating back to 2004.
This is yet another milestone in her impressive record, which grows day by day at the Bercy Stadium, where she has already won two gold medals and is aiming for three more.
Biles won with 59.131 points and a 1,199-point lead over Brazilian Rebeca Andrade (57.932), once again Olympic runner-up, as in Tokyo 2020.
Fellow American Sunisa Lee won Bronze, champion in Tokyo, with 54.465 points.
Biles’ chilling feat only serves to enhance the results of her pursuers, especially Andrade, who came close to winning gold halfway through the competition. Her second place behind a gymnastics revolutionary like Biles would merit a special category of medal.
Two days after leading the United States to team gold, Biles recorded an individual victory that was complicated by a mistake on the uneven bars that she managed to make up for with her excellent execution on the last two apparatus.
Andrade took on the challenge of beating Biles with a vault that was close to perfection, the Cheng that she dominates like no one else, 15.100 points, the result of a 5.6 difficulty and a 9.5 execution. She didn’t move her feet or a finger on the landing.
What seemed difficult, that Biles would surpass that score, happened. The North American showed off her Biles II, the Yurchenko double piked somersault, and although she did not nail it like the Brazilian, because she took a big step back, her 6.400 from the start launched her up to 15.766, despite an execution of 9.366.
Biles was already in the lead after just one apparatus, followed at 0.666 by Andrade, at 1.700 by the highly experienced Ellie Black, from Canada, who presented formidable uneven bars, and at 1.733 by the Algerian Kayla Nemour, in the first major final of her 17 years of life.
The best group’s performance on the uneven bars upset all expectations. While Andrade did a very confident 14.666, the best of the three she has presented in Paris, Biles lost concentration halfway through, slackened her legs, and was barely able to finish. She was saved by the final dive, but she did not get past 13.733.
Nemour’s rise was a given, thanks to the most complex routine ever recorded on this apparatus (difficulty 7.2). Despite making a serious mistake, failing to hold a handstand on the top band, the Algerian was ahead of Biles, who has this event as the only one in which she has never won an Olympic medal.
After this earthquake on the uneven bars, Andrade arrived in the lead at the halfway point of the competition, with a margin of 200 thousandths over Nemour and 267 over Biles, in a third place that was completely unusual for her.
The balance beam was the next obstacle for the favorites. A cure for Biles’s ailing hopes, as she held her acrobatic series with aplomb and was excellent at the dismount (14.566). Enough to overtake the Brazilian again, who scored 14.133. They would reach the last apparatus, the floor, separated by only 0.166.
Nemour lodged a complaint about her score, which was accepted, and left her at 13.233. She fell one place in the rankings, surpassed by Italy’s Alice D’Amato.
The floor would have the final say. Sunisa Lee excelled in gymnastics and secured herself a place on the podium. Rebeca took one foot off the diagonal, but her execution was otherwise impeccable and she took the lead, waiting for Simone. To the chords of Taylor Swift, the great champion, ‘GOAT’, could not fail and did not fail. She presented all her maximum difficulties as if they were simple. As soon as she finished, she went for a flag of her country, which began to wave as soon as the note came out. Champion again, who else?
Italy’s Alice D’Amatpo finished fourth and an angry Algerian Neymour fifth.
The other Brazilian in the final, Flavia Saraiva, also had a huge merit. She broke an eyebrow during the warm-up on Tuesday and, with a swollen and black eye, completed a great competition and finished ninth.
Artistic gymnastics takes a day off on Friday and will return to the Games program on Saturday with the start of the apparatus finals, in which Biles can win three more medals on vault, beam, and floor.
