Sports
Simone Biles Just Led The US Women’s Gymnastics Team To Olympic Gold
The GOAT made history individually, too.
During her first Olympics in Rio in 2016, Simone Biles liked to jokingly call her 22-year-old teammate Ali Raisman “grandma.” Eight years later, it’s 27-year-old Biles who is the grandma of the team. Still, she’s just as capable as ever of leading her team to gold — and she proved it alongside Suni Lee, Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles, and Hezly Rivera at the 2024 Paris Olympics on July 30.
With four veterans and just one newcomer (16-year-old Rivera), they’d already made history by being the oldest women’s gymnastics team sent to the Olympics by the United States. Winning gold leveled up that record. Biles is now the oldest American gymnast to win a gold medal, with Carey, 24, and Chiles, 23, behind her.
The team won decisively with a combined score of 171.296, more than 5.8 points above the silver medal-winning team from Italy. Chiles started off the night with a strong vault for Team USA, and they never looked back as they moved on to the uneven bars, balance beam, and finally floor exercise. Errors from fellow podium favorites Brazil and China kept a comfortable U.S. lead, so though the team waited to celebrate until after Biles’ final score came in, it was already clear they’d won.
While Team USA’s success was hardly a surprise, Italy hadn’t necessarily been seen as the likely silver medalist. Still, they put up 165.494 points, topping Brazil’s 164.497 by almost a point. It was Italy’s first medal in the women’s team event in 96 years and Brazil’s first-ever medal in the category. Behind them, Team Great Britain missed the podium by 0.234.
Paris is a U.S. “redemption tour,” as Biles has called it. She and her Tokyo teammates won the team silver in 2021, ending a two-Olympics gold streak in the event. After making the 2024 Olympic team, Biles said they still had “more to give,” and her prediction was clearly correct.
The team medal marked a major milestone for Biles personally. It’s her eighth medal from the Games (after her seven from Rio and Tokyo), which means she’s officially the most-decorated Olympic gymnast in U.S. history. Previously, she was tied with gymnastics legend Shannon Miller, who competed at the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Olympics.
Five more women’s artistic gymnastics finals are still to come in Paris, and Biles, Lee, Carey, and Chiles all have medal opportunities. There’s more history-making to be done.
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