**Paris (AFP)** – Simone Biles led the United States to a dominant victory in the women’s gymnastics team final on Tuesday, laying the ghosts of Tokyo to rest as she claimed a fifth career Olympic gold medal. Three years after Biles battled a disorientating mental block in Tokyo, pulling out of the team final in which the United States settled for silver, she and teammates Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Sunisa Lee led wire-to-wire in reclaiming gold ahead of Italy, with Brazil taking a historic bronze.
The Americans already had gold in hand when Biles electrified the Bercy Arena crowd with a gravity-defying floor routine that featured two of her signature skills — a double back flip with a half twist and the “triple-double” of two back flips with three twists. She said she knew after she’d landed her opening vault — not her signature double Yurchenko but a marginally less difficult Cheng — that she and the USA were on their way.
“After I finished vault, I was relieved,” Biles said. “I was like, ‘Whew, because at least no flashbacks or anything.’ As soon as I landed vault, I was like, Oh yeah, I’m definitely — we’re going to do this.” The United States combined for the highest score on all four apparatus for a total of 171.296 points and a whopping 5.802-point margin over Italy — whose last team medal was a silver in 1928. For the Brazilian squad led by Tokyo vault gold medallist Rebeca Andrade, it was a first Olympic team medal.
The Americans grabbed their third team gold in four Games after victories in 2012 and 2016. This one was especially sweet for a quartet of gymnasts who were all in Tokyo when that streak was broken. For Biles, it marks a return to the Olympic summit after a two-year break as she focused on her mental health, and she said the sensation of her second team gold — eight years after her first in Rio, was different.
“It was just like we were a little young and naive,” she said. “So it didn’t hit the way that it does now. Now that I’m much older, we have so much more experience and we’re out here really having fun and enjoying what we’re doing — so I think it’s just different.” Biles now has eight Olympic medals, the most of any US gymnast in history, and once again the stars were out for the sport’s greatest ever. Serena Williams, Nicole Kidman, and Bill Gates were on hand, as was Biles’s husband, NFL player Jonathan Owens, in a T-shirt emblazoned with his wife’s name and picture.
Fans were on their feet as soon as the United States team were introduced, Biles beaming and blowing kisses before they made their way to the vault. Biles had her sore left calf wrapped but showed no sign of trouble as the United States emerged from the first rotation with a 1.434-point lead over China.
**- Competition to coronation -** It was the same story as the USA moved on to uneven bars, where Lee, who has battled two career-threatening kidney ailments since winning all-around gold in Tokyo, set the pace with a routine that garnered 14.566 points. Chiles had nailed her bars routine and let out a yell before Biles powered through her weakest event, smiling from ear to ear after earning 14.400 points. At the halfway point, the competition had become a virtual coronation as the United States pushed their lead to 3.102 points over European champions Italy.
Meanwhile, China, bedevilled by the consistency problems that have hurt them in the past, were on a slide that saw them eventually finish sixth. A fall for Chiles on balance beam was barely a blip. Lee got the US back on track with a superb beam routine and Biles weathered a couple of wobbly moments on the 10cm-wide apparatus to send the Americans into their final floor exercise with a 3.602-point cushion.
“I kind of knew as long as I landed on my feet, on all passes, we were going to be good,” Biles said. “So as soon as I stepped out of bounds, I was like, ‘Oh, well there’s a line. But I guess it’s not that big of a deal.” This was the second of 14 artistic gymnastics titles on the line in Paris, with Japan’s Daiki Hashimoto aiming to defend his men’s all-around title on Wednesday.
© 2024 AFP
