Simone Biles has been to the mountaintop, but getting back to the summit is even harder.
In her third Olympic Games, Biles won the individual all-around gold medal for a second time, reclaiming the 2016 title that etched her name among the sport’s legends.
U.S. gymnasts have taken the individual all-around at the last five Olympics: Athens, Beijing, London, Rio and Tokyo. Today, Biles added Paris to that storied list.
She’s long been considered the GOAT, but this gold is made of grit.
“Three years ago, I never thought I’d step foot on a gymnastics floor again just because of everything that had happened,” Biles said after her win, referring to a battle with the twisties in Tokyo. “Tonight, it means the world to me.”
Few reigning Olympic all-around champions return to the podium at all, but Suni Lee survived the treacherous climb back, tackling kidney disease and other obstacles on her way to clinching the bronze over Italy’s Alice D’Amato by a tenth of a point. Brazilian gymnastics phenom Rebeca Andrade won her second consecutive all-around silver medal.
Biles’ margin of victory on Andrade was just more than a point, the equivalent of a fall, but she said she felt the pressure of Andrade hot on her heels.
“I don’t want to compete with Rebeca no more,” Biles said of her Brazilian rival, with a chuckle. “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 brought out the best athlete in myself.”
Lee said she has “never seen her so stressed.” Biles was originally going to perform a safer vault, but decided she needed to “bring out the big guns” — her eponymous “Biles II” vault — to beat Andrade.
Biles has not announced her retirement from the sport, but added, “I’m gonna hand it to her now — she can have the rest.”
Biles is the first American to win the Olympic all-around gold medal more than once and joins Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union and Věra Čáslavská of Czechoslovakia as repeat champions. Both remain icons in a sport that has evolved considerably since they last competed in the 1960s.
Until Biles, no gymnast had won two Olympic all-around championships non-consecutively. Today’s medal is Biles’ ninth and sixth gold. The gold medal she won in the team final on Tuesday made her the most decorated American gymnast in the history of the Olympic Games, usurping “Magnificent Seven” star, Shannon Miller
Before Paris, Biles was already the most decorated gymnast in history from any country if you include her world championship medals in the tally. She now has 39 combined world and Olympic medals.
