Days after an injury scare, Simone Biles and her U.S. women’s gymnastics teammates took home the gold in the team finals. It was their first medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and marked an incredible comeback for the history-making athlete and for Team USA.
Italy took second place and Brazil won bronze.
The women’s artistic gymnastics team final took place Tuesday at Bercy Arena and featured Biles along with her American teammates Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Sunisa Lee. Biles took part in the uneven bars, vault, balance beam and floor exercise events.
Team USA was heavily favored to win, after earning back-to-back gold at the Summer Games in London and Rio in 2012 and 2016, and capturing a silver medal in team competition in Tokyo last time around.
Sunisa Lee of Team USA performs on the balance beam in the women’s gymnastics team final at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games on July 30, 2024.
Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images
Lee was the first American gymnast to perform on the floor and completed a strong routine with visible excitement as she left the mat. Her family cheered uproariously from the stands, as did the rest of the stadium. Lee earned an impressive 13.9 for the exercise, which is evaluated out of 14 points. Chiles nailed her floor routine, too, inching closer to that perfect score with 13.966.
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Biles closed out the finals with a spectacular floor routine performed to a full-on standing ovation. It was arguably the most anticipated showing of Tuesday’s team competition, and Biles delivered. Her routine included several of Biles’ trademarked gymnastics moves, including her first namesake, a double layout with a half-twist, and a triple-double. The exercise had solidified Team USA’s victory before Biles’ score was even revealed
Biles’ bar routine prompted roiling applause from a crowd that included Olympic swimming legend Michael Phelps and movie director Spike Lee. Lee and Biles both delivered solid performances on the balance beam that earned high marks, critically, after Chiles fell from the equipment during her earlier beam routine.
Jordan Chiles of Team USA performs on the balance beam during the artistic gymnastics women’s team final, at Bercy Arena, during the 2024 Paris Olympic Games on July 30, 2024.
Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images
Team USA — which took top scores in the qualification session over the weekend — competed in the final against gymnasts from seven other teams that placed highly in the qualifiers: Italy, China, Brazil, Japan, Canada, Britain and Romania. The finals call for three gymnasts from each team to compete in each gymnastics category.
Lee is the reigning all-around champion. But in the team finals, all three gymnasts’ scores are considered together. Those parameters make the final especially challenging, since they leave little room for error by any contending athlete, raising the stakes from qualifiers where all four athletes competed and the lowest-scoring athlete’s marks were dropped from the team total.
Simone Biles of Team USA performs on the uneven bars in the women’s gymnastics team final at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games on July 30, 2024.
Marijan Murat/picture alliance via Getty Images
Biles, 27, made her highly anticipated return last weekend in the qualifying rounds and dominated, despite a calf injury that caused her to limp. Women’s gymnastics coach Cecille Landi, a former Olympian for France, told reporters after the qualifying session that Biles had tweaked her calf a few weeks ago and was on the mend.
The coach noted that Biles had no intention to leave the competition, saying, “Never in her mind.”
Simone Biles from Team United States reacts after her exercise on the balance beam during day two of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at the Bercy Arena on July 28, 2024 in Paris, France.
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Team USA finished Sunday’s qualification session with an impressive score of 172.296, putting them at the front of the pack heading into the final.
Biles is in her third Olympics and its her first since experiencing the “twisties,” a phenomenon where gymnasts lose their sense of place in the air, which forced her to drop out of multiple events during the Tokyo Olympics.
Tuesday’s win makes Biles the most decorated American Olympic gymnast, surpassing Shannon Miller’s seven-medal haul, with the team gold her eighth Olympic medal. That also ties her with Anton Heida, a 1904 Olympian, for the most gold medals earned by an American gymnast.
2024 Summer Olympics in Paris
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Christopher Brito
Source link : https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/artistic-gymnastics-olympics-2024-team-final-simone-biles/
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Publish date : 2024-07-30 14:45:53
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