Simone Biles leads U.S. women to gold in Paris

PARIS – The U.S. women’s gymnastics team has recaptured here what eluded it in Tokyo: gold.

After Simone Biles’ struggles led to silver in 2021, the Americans sought redemption, and found it with a rock-solid performance in Paris on Tuesday.

The win came in a gym packed with A-list celebrities, and with Biles and teammate Sunisa Lee re-establishing themselves as favorites in Thursday’s all-around final. Italy took silver, and Brazil took bronze.

The Americans had been dominant in the qualifying round, but Biles felt minor pain in her calf during the competition, her coach, Cecile Landi, said afterward. Biles competed the rest of the meet with her lower leg wrapped in tape.

Yet Biles continued on and delivered a standout performance amid the injury scare.

With Russia banned from competing as a team at these Games, the Americans were heavy favorites to win the gold. In the qualifying round, the U.S. women posted a score more than five points ahead of the next-best teams – Italy, China and Brazil.

The U.S. women have said they were looking to redeem themselves after falling to silver in Tokyo after Biles suffered a disorienting mental block.

In vault, with Biles’ score of 14.900, the U.S. women finished with a 44.100. That’s lower than in the qualifying round, but the difference is solely because Biles opted to perform the less difficult of her two vaults. Overall, that was a great start for the Americans.

Lee, the U.S. team’s star on bars, wasn’t fazed by her mistake in warm-ups. She caught that opening release element without issue. She had a bit of trouble on the next skill – a full-twisting transition down to the low bar – and didn’t connect the next skill. But she kept her rhythm to avoid a major deduction. Lee received a 14.566, the best score of the rotation for the Americans.

Jordan Chiles put together one of the most stunning floor routines of her career – she was in tears as soon as she was in her final landing position.

On beam, Biles delivered, with a mostly solid routine. She had to fight to control her wolf turn, which is when she spins on one foot in a squatted position, but she stayed on the apparatus without a major break. On her aerial cartwheel, she wobbled and bent at her hips, which was the biggest deduction in the routine. She still earned a 14.366.

Biles hit her routine on bars. She had no major issues and looked thrilled when she landed. When the crowd cheered, it was a bit hard to hear the floor music in the arena. She scored a 14.400.

Bars is Biles’ weakest event, but that’s relative to how good she is on the other apparatuses. Biles said earlier this year: “For so many years, everybody told me I’m not good at bars, and I thought I wasn’t good at bars. But it’s not the worst. I can swing bars.”

Rebeca Andrade anchored Brazil’s lineup on bars with a 14.533. She worked through the routine with fantastic form; her legs stayed perfectly together on her pirouetting elements, and her release elements had great amplitude. She also hit a clean balance beam routine for a 14.133, helping to get Brazil back on track after the early fall in the rotation. Her floor routine was beautiful, with a stumble on her first tumbling pass, but she stuck her double layout third pass for a 14.200. In her last event, she put up a huge 15.100 on vault.

China saw two tough errors: Qiu Qiyuan hit her foot on the bar in the midst of her laidout Jaeger. She’s normally fabulous on bars. She received a 14.300, but just a 7.700 execution score. Zhou Yaqin, one of China’s best beam workers, grabbed the beam and then fell during a switch split leap, getting a 12.300. China typically does well in uneven bars, but floor and vault are weaker events for their team.

Flavia Saraiva, one of the stars of Brazil, took a hard fall on the uneven bars earlier and afterward wore a bandage on her eyebrow. In her balance beam routine, she bent way over at the waist during one element .

Celebrities in the stands included Natalie Portman, Michael Phelps, Nadia Comaneci and Serena Williams. Tom Cruise stopped by qualifications earlier this week.