Simone Freakin’ Biles.
It was hard to miss the message printed on people’s T–shirts throughout the Bercy Arena stands on Thursday during the women’s gymnastics all-around competition, complete with the image of a goat’s head to signify the Greatest of All Time.
Biles received the loudest cheers when her name was introduced—not just as the event started, but also every time she was up for one of the four apparatuses—vault, uneven bars, beam, and floor. Much of the crowd was there for one thing—to see Simone Biles crowned the new all-around queen.
And Biles did not disappoint. She earned gold, while Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade won silver and Biles’ U.S. teammate Sunisa Lee, the all-around champion from the Tokyo Olympics, won bronze. Biles’ win continues the U.S.’s dominance in the event—an American gymnast has won the women’s all around at every Olympics since 2004.
This moment was a long time coming. In Tokyo in 2021, Biles was expected to repeat as the gold medalist in the event she won in Rio in 2016, but abruptly withdrew from most of the gymnastics events after experiencing the “twisties,” which disrupted her ability to twist and flip safely. Biles has since discussed the pressure and anxiety of managing the expectations leading up to the Tokyo Olympics, and the role they might have played in triggering the twisties.
In Paris, Biles has been stronger than ever, helping the U.S. women to qualify in first for the team competition and then leading the squad to gold in that event. It felt as if the entire arena seemed to be simply waiting for the inevitable coronation as the competition unfolded.
But Biles didn’t see it that way. Biles opened the competition on vault, and unleashed her secret weapon, the Biles II, or Yurchenko double pike, which is a deadly rival-squasher in points. Worth a whopping 6.4 in difficulty, Biles executed it perfectly except for a step back on the landing generated from all the momentum she builds in completing two flips in the pike position. Her score of 15.766 was the highest of the night, and even earned some respect from the GOAT herself, who said ‘Oh my god’ after seeing it flash on the big screen in the Bercy Arena.
But on the next event, uneven bars, she had uncharacteristic mistakes. “That’s not the bars routine that I’ve been training; out of all the events I think bars is the one I haven’t messed up on like once the whole entire training here or back [home] in Houston,” Biles said to press after the competition. “I was praying to every single god out there trying to refocus and recenter myself.”
“We were both freaking out so it just felt nice to know that I wasn’t out there freaking out by myself,” said Lee.
Biles recovered to post another respectable score on balance beam, and then came her last event, floor. Biles was the last gymnast to compete, and the entire arena was transfixed on the 4’8” athlete taking her place on the 12m x 12m floor in the center of the arena. When her music began with Taylor Swift’s “Ready for It,” so did the show. Biles put on a textbook demonstration of why she’s the GOAT. Knowing all eyes were on her, she whipped off two of the moves on floor that are named after her, starting with the triple twisting double flip, and capping it off with the double layout with a half-twist. When she took her final pose, there was no question about who the new Olympic all-around champion would be.
“Simone is a reference for the entire world,” Andrade said after the team event in Paris Tuesday in which Team USA won gold and Brazil took bronze. “Not just for gymnastics, but for many athletes. Being able to watch, see how she competes, and especially how happy she is here is very gratifying.” Andrade was among the first to climb over some barriers tonight to give Biles a hug when the final all-around scores were announced.
That final floor routine that clinched gold was signature Biles; she has been the consistent and clutch performer in Paris. In the first event of these Games, the qualification, the U.S. women began on beam and the pressure showed; each of the two teammates who preceded Biles were wobbly and had to make several balance corrections. When it was Biles’ turn, she knew her performance would set the tone for the remainder of the team event. As it happened, all of the other gymnasts in the arena had completed their routines, which meant no music for the floor routines filling the arena, and all eyes were on her. During her routine the crowd of 10,000 fell into a hushed silence, only cheering when she completed each skill.
Biles can manage that pressure though now. She says weekly meetings with her therapist, and calls before every competition in Paris, have helped. And as the most decorated gymnast of all time, she’s used to people watching her flip and fly through the air. Even in practice, gymnasts tend to stop and watch when Biles is up, especially when she trains the gravity-defying Biles II on vault. Even teammate Lee can’t help but watch and marvel at the gymnastics skills that seem to come so easily for Biles. “I look at Cecile [Landi, Biles’ coach] and ask her, ‘how the heck does she do that?’” says Lee. “And Cecile just goes ‘I dunno know.’”
Throughout the night, Biles checked off the big skills that are named for her, starting with the Biles II on vault, followed by the double-twisting double somersault dismount on beam, and finally the Biles I and Biles II on floor. She acknowledged that she felt Andrade on her heels; “I don’t want to compete with Rebecca no more, I’m tired,” Biles said, laughing. “She’s way too close [in her scores]. I’ve never had an athlete that close so it definitely put me on my toes and it brought out the best athlete in myself. But I was uncomfortable…I was stressing.”
Biles admitted she hadn’t initially planned on performing the Biles II vault, but going into the competition, knew that “on each event we’re very similar in scores so I was like, ‘O.K., I think I have to bring out the big guns this time.’”
For Lee, the bronze is a fitting cap to a difficult journey that included being diagnosed and recovering from two kidney conditions, and being told by her doctors that she wouldn’t do gymnastics again. And after winning gold in the Tokyo Olympics all-around after Biles withdrew, Lee has admitted to feeling imposter syndrome and not feeling that she deserved the title. “I really didn’t think I would even get on the podium,” she said. “I just told myself not to put pressure on myself because I didn’t want to think about the past Olympics or try to prove anything to anybody. I wanted to just prove to myself that I could do it because I didn’t think that I could.”
Lee is the second all-around champion to earn another medal in consecutive Olympics in the event since Nadia Comeneci earned silver in 1980 after winning gold in 1976.
Repeating as silver medalist was also meaningful for Andrade, who has overcome three ACL tears and thought about giving up gymnastics. Competing against Biles was “an honor,” Andrade said, and acknowledged the journey that Biles took to compete again. “What happened [to Biles] in Tokyo was a difficult situation,” she said. “Here, she was back to 100% and gave her maximum. That was great to see.”
But as expected, in some ways, as Biles’ win was, it makes the world forget how challenging it is to make an Olympic team, much less stand on the podium at the Games. “Sometimes we get so accustomed to athletes bringing home the gold that it seems easy; it’s not,” says Shannon Miller, who, before Biles won the team gold in Paris, was tied with Biles as the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast. “Often we focus on the gold medal moment but forget about the 10,000 falls and failures that happened along the way.”
For Biles, Andrade, and Lee, those medals will feel weightier for the journeys each took to earn them. And for Biles, it’s validation for the decision to rewrite her Olympic story, and find her love of gymnastics again. “Three years ago, I never thought I’d step foot on the gymnastics floor again just because of everything that had happened,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s crazy that I am in the conversation [about] the greatest of all athletes, because I just still think I’m Simone Biles from Spring, Texas that loves to flip.”
Contact us at letters@time.com.
