Simone Biles, of the United States, celebrates after winning the gold medal during the women’s artistic gymnastics all-around finals in Bercy Arena at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Thursday, Aug. 1, 2024, in Paris, France.

Francisco Seco/Associated Press

 

 

PARIS — Simone Biles needs no introduction, but when she gets one, there are many options.

World champion. Olympic gold medalist. GOAT.

In the 11 years since Biles made her international debut as a braces-faced teenager, the three-time Olympian — and most decorated American Olympic gymnast — has become a mononymous cultural figure.

There are 10 other athletes with the first name Simone competing in the Paris Olympics, including U.S. six-time Olympic medal swimmer Simone Manuel. But when people from red carpet celebrities to elite athletes to everyday spectators say that the Olympian they are most excited to watch compete is Simone, everybody knows whom they are talking about.

It’s her last name, though, that will endure.

Biles performed four of the five skills named after her in Paris on Thursday while winning her second career Olympic all-around title and second gold medal of this year’s Games.

Afterward, Biles wore another piece of bling alongside her gold medal: a bejeweled GOAT necklace.

“But at the end of the day, it is crazy that I am in the conversation of greatest of all athletes,” she said, “because I just still think I’m Simone Biles from Spring, Texas, that loves to flip.”

A mistake on the uneven bars cost Biles her lead midway through the competition. But she executed magnificent routines on balance beam and floor exercise, including three of her signature eponymous skills, to rally from third place back to the top — a mini comeback within a larger one.

Biles vanquished ghosts of her last Olympic competition in Tokyo, when she withdrew from the team final and individual all-around final after a case of the twisties left her distraught and questioning her future in gymnastics.

Two days after the 2016 all-around champion helped the United States win team gold in Paris, Biles stood on the podium again as one of three gymnasts in Olympic history to win two-all around titles, and the only American.

Nobody but Biles knows what her future holds after these Olympics, but her legacy in the sport is secure.

At 27, Biles is the oldest Olympic all-around champion in 72 years and oldest American champion ever. The Soviet Union’s Maria Gorokhovskaya was 30 when she won in 1952.

In Paris, Biles scored 59.131 in the all-around as she beat out Brazilian silver medalist Rebeca Andrade and U.S. bronze medalist Suni Lee to win the title, which was also her sixth career Olympic gold medal.

The entire all-around podium exuded resilience.

Andrade, 25, grew up walking four hours round trip from her favela in Brazil to the gym where she practiced gymnastics. She tore her ACL three times between 2015 and 2019, then came back to win consecutive all-around silver medals in Tokyo and Paris.

Earlier this year, Lee spent five months “rotting in bed” after two kidney diseases ended the reigning Olympic all-around champion’s NCAA gymnastics career, sidelined her from elite gymnastics and sent her into a depression. Prior to Paris, Lee had only competed all-around at two competitions since her return.

And then there’s Biles, who has continued to defy age, gravity and doubt.

On Thursday, all three gymnasts repeated as Olympic all-around medalists.

The adage, “Act like you’ve been there before,” did not apply to Biles and Lee, who held a U.S. flag between them and galloped around the floor exercise podium, basking in the sound of deafening cheers from a crowd sharing in their joy.

Later, when Biles attributed the electric atmosphere and magnified excitement for women’s gymnastics this year to the return of Olympic normalcy after a pandemic-constrained Tokyo Games, Lee offered a polite rebuttal.

“I have to say, honestly Simone, I feel like a lot of it has to do with you,” Lee said.

The world watched Biles grow up in gymnastics, as the spotlight on her grew brighter and brighter with each successive international victory and jaw-dropping skill invention. By the time she went to her second Olympics in 2021, she was already perceived as untouchable. That was not true.

“Leading up to Tokyo, I was so nervous about getting injured physically that I kind of neglected my mental health,” Biles said. “And then I was injured, except it was a mental injury, and I think that was almost harder than physical. … To see where I’ve grown even from Tokyo and even from a 19-year-old in Rio is amazing. So I’m really proud of the work that she’s put in, because I never thought I’d be on a world stage again competing.”

Biles is undefeated in every domestic and international competition she’s been in since her official comeback last May, and most of the victories were not particularly close. Thursday’s all-around final was different.

The three medalists rotated through the competition together, and it was clear from the start that it was a race each was desperate to win. After Lee started off the competition on vault with a 13.933 score for a Yurchenko double full, Andrade stuck a Cheng for a 15.100. Next up was Biles, who hadn’t done her signature Yurchenko double pike in the team final, opting instead for the safer but still highly difficult Cheng.

Biles said she wasn’t planning to do the Yurchenko double pike, also known as the Biles II on vault, in the all-around final, either, but she wanted an edge because she knew how close she and Andrade would score on each event.

“So I was like, ‘OK, I think I have to bring out the big guns this time,’” Biles said.

She sailed the Biles II with a large hop back for a 15.766. “Oh my god,” Biles said when she looked up and saw her score.

But Biles’ lead evaporated after her rough routine on uneven bars. After Andrade opened the rotation with a 14.666 score, Biles incurred multiple deductions and scored a 13.733. On one transition move switching from the higher bar to the lower one, she had to bend her knees to avoid her feet hitting the floor. She rolled her eyes at herself after and TV cameras caught her saying, “I don’t even know how I held on to that.”

Lee fell during her warmup on a same-bar release move called the Nabieva, just as she did in warmups for the team final before crushing her routine. She hit it when it counted again Thursday, finishing with a stuck dismount to score a 14.866.

Lee was still out of medal contention, however, and the mistake had cost Biles her gold-medal standing. Midway through the competition, Andrade was on top 0.2 ahead of Algerian Kaylia Nemour and 0.267 ahead of Biles. The 2016 all-around champion would have to make up ground on balance beam and floor exercise.

Between rotations, Biles sat stoic and expressionless, staring straight ahead.

“I was probably praying to every single god out there trying to refocus and recenter myself because that’s not the bars that I’ve been training,” Biles said. “Out of all of the events, the bars is the one that I haven’t messed up on once the whole entire training, here or back in Houston. So just refocusing and making sure that as soon as we go to beam since I’m first up, I can just recenter myself and finish the rest of the competition — because it’s not over ’til it’s over.”

The two-time Olympic balance beam bronze medalist rallied right away. Starting off the third rotation on beam, Biles saved two falls and nailed her eponymous dismount to score a 14.566, to a standing ovation. After hugging Lee and coach Cécile Landi, Biles appeared to exhale.

Heading into the final rotation, Biles was in gold medal position with a slim 0.166 lead over Andrade and 1.232 points ahead of Italy’s Alice D’Amato in third place. Lee and Nemour were tied for fourth.

Biles later said it was the most stressed she’s ever been in a competition.

“I don’t want to compete with Rebeca no more. I’m tired,” she joked. “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, so I’m excited and proud to compete with her.”

Andrade said in Portuguese, “It was an honor (to compete against her), because I can see how happy she is to compete again. She was enjoying the competition. To have her here with that mindset and behavior is important for us as well.”

On floor exercise, Lee competed with the fans cheering her on and finished beaming after she stuck her final tumbling pass. Her 13.666 score assured her a medal, and she shared a long embrace with coach Jess Graba.

“I didn’t want to think about the past Olympics or even trying to prove to anybody anything, because I wanted to just prove to myself that I could do it, because I didn’t think that I could,” Lee said. “But it has taken a lot. I’m so grateful that I had my coaches, and having Simone here today definitely helped me a lot because we were both freaking out, so it just felt nice to know that I wasn’t out there freaking out by myself.”

Chants of “Re-bec-a!” filled the arena as Andrade prepared for her floor routine. But when she stepped out of bounds on her first pass, she gave Biles all the daylight she required.

Biles needed better than a 13.867 to win. She scored a 15.066.

When she walked off soundtracked by ear-splitting roars, Biles hugged Lee and her coaches. Then she rested both elbows on the bars podium, catching her breath and absorbing the applause.

After three anguish-filled years of wondering if she would ever return to the Olympic stage, she was back at the pinnacle.

Before Biles and her competitors were introduced Thursday, Nadia Comăneci, a nine-time Olympic medalist with five golds, performed the ceremonial opening for the all-around. Asked about Biles, Comăneci predicted, “I think she will pass me.”

It is certainly possible. Biles has three event finals still to come in Paris: vault on Saturday, followed by balance beam and floor on Monday.

Additional accolades will not change how Biles is remembered in the decades to come, only perhaps how she is introduced.

But her name, in icon-status first name only or in its full form, will endure. She will always be Simone Biles, from Spring, Texas, the woman who loves to flip.