Biles took a break from the sport, nearly two years away, then began the comeback that led here: to the vault runway in the team final at the Paris Olympics. Biles felt calm and prepared, but only after she planted her feet on the mat after a successful 1½ twist did she feel relieved.
She smiled before she had finished controlling her landing. She knew then that this day in Paris would go as planned. This time, Biles was not the superstar who withdrew. She was the dominant force that propelled the Americans to the team gold medal by a massive margin.
Jordan Chiles, who also was part of the Tokyo Olympic team, has trained alongside Biles as she has worked her way back into world-class form, and once Biles made it through Tuesday’s vault, Chiles said she thought to herself, “Yo! Hallelujah! No flashbacks.”
What did it take to get here?
“A lot,” said Cecile Landi, who coaches Biles. “It’s been a roller coaster for the past three years with a lot of good times and very difficult times. So today is just amazing.”
The U.S. gymnasts have called this Olympics their “redemption tour,” with the team gold as their shared goal. Four of the five members of this team competed in Tokyo, and they all felt they had more they wanted to accomplish. Biles had the most high-profile letdown, but even Sunisa Lee, the reigning Olympic all-around champion, left disappointed by some of the medals she didn’t win. Chiles made several mistakes on her sport’s biggest stage in 2021. And Jade Carey won gold on floor, but a stumble on the runway kept her from vying for a vault medal.
After the chaos of Tokyo, Tuesday’s team final was pleasantly uneventful.
After Biles endured an injury scare during Sunday’s qualifying, the anxiety over how she would perform here only heightened. But with her lower leg taped, Biles competed with her usual power and precision. Biles, who said adrenaline takes her mind away from the pain, sealed the gold medal with her floor routine in the final rotation.
Biles and the U.S. team had been excellent all evening. Chiles’s fall on her difficult front pike salto mount onto the beam was the only blemish on an otherwise fantastic performance. With Russia banned from competing as a team in Paris, the United States had no serious challengers, and its final score of 171.296 left it nearly six points ahead of Italy, which won the silver in its best women’s gymnastics team finish since 1928. Brazil, headlined by Rebeca Andrade, won bronze, the country’s first Olympic team medal in women’s gymnastics.
The U.S. women stood far above their peers, storming out to a lead that kept growing. This type of performance — not what happened in Tokyo — is the norm for the U.S. women’s gymnastics program that has been the standard-bearer in the sport for more than a decade.
Since Biles made her competitive return last year, she has been fantastic. Sometimes her difficult skills generate so much buzz that they overshadow her consistency. That’s the greatness of Biles: She does the hardest skills in the world with superb execution and hardly makes major mistakes. Chiles called Biles “the greatest of all greats.”
In the team final, Biles stepped out of bounds twice on floor, and she had a brief moment of unsteadiness during her beam routine. But even though she initially found herself hoping, “Please no flashbacks,” referring to the trouble in Tokyo, she stayed composed all night.
Chiles and Carey both struggled during the 2023 season and failed to earn spots on the U.S. team at the world championships. Kidney-related health issues upended Lee’s training last year. But it all came together in time for Paris.
They have climbed to their competitive peaks in the moments when it mattered most. The fifth gymnast, 16-year-old Hezly Rivera, did not compete. She was the only one who wasn’t part of the Tokyo squad. For the others, the value of the gold medal was rooted in their past Olympic experience.
For Biles, the eighth Olympic medal made her the most decorated U.S. gymnast in Olympic history, breaking a tie with Shannon Miller. She has stood on top of the podium with the U.S. team before, but that was eight years ago.
“We were a little young and naive,” said Biles, thinking back on the success she had in Rio de Janeiro as a 19-year-old. “So it didn’t hit the way that it does now.”
What has changed, for Biles and the other returning Olympians, is what they’ve been through. This medal was proof of redemption.
