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PARIS — Simone Biles walked off the floor with both arms raised over her head and one finger on each hand extending toward the crowd.
Again, she is No. 1.
The greatest gymnast in history reclaimed the Olympic title Thursday at Bercy Arena, becoming the first woman to win multiple Olympic all-around gold medals since 1968 and just the third overall. Three years after leaving the Tokyo Olympics, never thinking she would do gymnastics again, Biles climbed to the top step of the podium in Paris and blew kisses to an adoring audience.
“Personally, tonight, it means the world to me,” Biles said.
When Biles landed her final tumbling pass, securing her sixth Olympic gold medal, U.S. teammate Suni Lee jumped in the air and clapped her hands over her head. The Tokyo Olympic all-around champion took the bronze medal that could have felt like gold after a long battle back from two kidney diseases during the last year. Both Americans stepped onto the floor at the end of the meet, each holding a corner of the U.S. flag.
Biles extended the United States’ Olympic dominance to six consecutive women’s all-around titles two nights after leading the Americans to their third team gold medal in four Olympics.
Biles, 27, and Lee, 21, are two of the stars of the U.S. team that won the Olympic title Tuesday, with the quintet nicknaming itself “the Golden Girls,” a nod to the fact that the team was the oldest U.S. women’s gymnastics team since 1952. With 25-year-old Brazilian Rebeca Andrade claiming silver, 1.199 points behind Biles, the all-around podium could adopt a new nickname.
The comeback queens.
Simone Biles performs on the balance beam during the women’s all-around individual finals at the Paris Olympics on Thursday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
After withdrawing from competition citing mental health concerns in Tokyo, Biles returned to become the oldest female all-around Olympic champion since 1952 and the first female artistic gymnast to win an individual event title twice in nonconsecutive Games. Last year, Lee was told she could never compete in gymnastics again after being diagnosed with two kidney diseases. Andrade has fought through three anterior cruciate ligament tears to become the best gymnast in her country’s history.
Andrade, the reigning Olympic vault champion, immediately announced her championship potential by sticking an excellent vault that sent the crowd into a frenzy. She backed it up with a solid bar routine that put her in first place after two rotations when Biles blinked on bars.
The U.S. star faltered during a transition from the high bar to the low bar and had to bend her legs while swinging to avoid touching the mat. Camera operators following her every move on the floor caught Biles closing her eyes in a quiet moment of meditation.
“I was probably praying to every single God out there trying to refocus and recenter myself,” Biles said.
Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Suni Lee and Jade Carey rebounded from finishing second in Tokyo, winning gold in Olympic gymnastics team competition.
Lee said she had never seen the 30-time world medalist so stressed. Biles was getting ready for beam thinking how glad she was that she chose to compete her Yurchenko double pike vault that gave her an eight-10th difficulty score advantage in the first rotation. The U.S. teammates tried to calculate the scores they needed while standing on the sidelines before realizing their skill sets didn’t include mental math. Biles looked into the crowd and asked her husband, Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens, where she was in the standings.
She was third after the second rotation, trailing Andrade by 0.267 and Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour, a star bar worker who held a 0.067-point advantage for second place.
“I don’t want to compete with Rebecca no more,” Biles said. “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 it brought out the best athlete in myself.”
Biles responded with a clean beam routine that put her 0.166 points ahead of Andrade going into floor.
When she landed her double-flipping, single-twisting dismount, Biles clapped three times and blew a kiss to the crowd. Lee, awaiting her turn on the event, jumped in the air.
Simone Biles smiles after performing on the floor routine during the gymnastics individual all-around finals at the Paris Olympics on Thursday.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
The 21-year-old from St. Paul, Minn., entered the final rotation, floor, out of third place by 0.034 points. After Italy’s Alice D’Amato led off the rotation with a clean routine, Lee needed 13.534 to clinch a medal. She nearly stuck her opening tumbling pass — a double-flipping, single-twisting layout — and her mouth fell open. She earned a 13.666.
When it flashed across the screen, a baffled smile spread across Lee’s face.
“I went out there and I just told myself not to put any pressure on myself,” Lee said. “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.”
It was the first time that two previous Olympic all-around champions faced off in a women’s all-around final as women are beginning to carve out longer careers after decades of one-and-done teenage champions.
A mix of cultural and technical changes have helped 27-year-old Simone Biles and other older gymnasts keep competing.
Starting with Romania’s Nadia Comaneci victory in 1976 at 14 years old, the past 12 Olympic women’s all-around champions have been in their teens. But Thursday night’s podium was filled with 20-somethings. The first gymnast to earn a perfect 10 in the Olympics was in attendance Thursday, speaking to the crowd during a video screen interview. Comaneci was reminded that she has nine Olympic medals. Biles entered the night with eight.
“I think,” Comaneci said with a chuckle, “she’s going to pass me.”
Biles can add to her tally with three more event finals beginning with Saturday’s vault competition. She ranks third all-time with six Olympic gold medals, trailing Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union and Vera Caslavska of Czechoslovakia, who have nine and seven, respectively.
Before Biles could put her latest gold medal around her neck Thursday, she fastened on a necklace on the side of the floor. She flashed the pendant toward the camera.
It was a diamond-encrusted goat.
