Simone Biles’ Jaw-Dropping Olympic Gold Win Leaves Fans Speechless
Shocking Twist as Suni Lee Clinches Unexpected Bronze!
Simone Biles wins Olympic all-around gold; Suni Lee takes bronze
Biles is the first American gymnast to win the sport’s highest individual honor twice.
Biles strikes gold, again, in individual all-around competition
Simone Biles has been to the mountaintop, but getting back to the summit is even harder.
In her third Olympic Games, Biles won the individual all-around gold medal for a second time Thursday, reclaiming the 2016 title that etched her name among the sport’s legends.
U.S. gymnasts have taken the individual all-around at the last five Olympics: Athens, Beijing, London, Rio and Tokyo. Thursday, Biles added Paris to that storied list.
She has long been considered the GOAT, but this gold is made of grit.
“Three years ago, I never thought I’d step foot on a gymnastics floor again just because of everything that had happened,” Biles said after her win, referring to a battle with the “twisties” in Tokyo. “Tonight, it means the world to me.”
Few reigning Olympic all-around champions return to the podium at all, but Suni Lee survived the treacherous climb back, tackling kidney disease and other obstacles on her way to clinching the bronze over Italy’s Alice D’Amato by a tenth of a point. Brazilian gymnastics phenom Rebeca Andrade won her second consecutive all-around silver medal.
Biles’ margin of victory over Andrade was just more than a point, the equivalent of a fall, but she said she felt the pressure of Andrade hot on her heels.
“I don’t want to compete with Rebeca no more,” Biles said with a chuckle. “I’m tired. She’s way too close. I’ve never had an athlete that close, so it definitely put me on my toes and brought out the best athlete in myself.”
Lee said she has “never seen her so stressed.” Biles was originally going to perform a safer vault but decided she needed to “bring out the big guns” — her eponymous “Biles II” vault — to beat Andrade.
Biles has not announced her retirement, but she said, “I’m going to hand it to her now — she can have the rest.”
Biles is the first American to win the Olympic all-around gold medal more than once, joining Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union and Věra Čáslavská of Czechoslovakia as repeat champions. Both remain icons in a sport that has evolved considerably since they last competed in the 1960s.
Gold medalist Simone Biles and bronze medalist Suni Lee of the U.S. celebrate after the artistic gymnastics women’s all-around final Thursday in Paris.Ezra Shaw / Getty Images
Until Biles, no gymnast had won two Olympic all-around championships non-consecutively. Thursday’s medal is Biles’ ninth and her sixth gold. The gold medal she won in the team final Tuesday made her the most decorated American gymnast in the history of the Olympic Games, usurping “Magnificent Seven” star, Shannon Miller
Before Paris, Biles was already the most decorated gymnast in history from any country if you include her world championship medals. She has 39 combined world and Olympic medals.
The gold hung in the balance after Biles had a major form break on the uneven bars, bending her legs on a transition from the high bar to the low, called a Pak salto.
Hanging on to the bar after that was an accomplishment. Biles received a sizable deduction, earning a 13.733, putting her behind Andrade as they made their way to the balance beam.
“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 had been training,” Biles said after the meet.
Despite occupying the bronze medal position after the halfway mark, Biles retained a difficulty advantage heading into beam and floor. She is the reigning world champion on both events and will also appear in the Olympic event finals.
Biles gave a master class on the 4-inch-wide beam, which has throttled many an Olympic dream. Andrade displayed some nerves there and trailed Biles heading into the final rotation, but she hit a strong exercise to close out on floor.
Sunisa Lee
Suni Lee competes in the balance beam in the women’s all-around final Thursday.Loic Venace / AFP-Getty Images
She was also buoyed by her namesake vault, the Biles II — a Yurchenko double pike — in the first rotation. The 15.766 she posted there was the highest score of the day on any apparatus.
Biles clinched the gold by performing the world’s most difficult floor routine, set to “… Ready For It?” by Taylor Swift, earning a 15.066.
Three years ago in Tokyo, Lee narrowly edged Andrade to win the sport’s most prestigious individual honor, keeping the
