PARIS — It took 6.81 seconds to erase a conversation stretching back three years and three days.
On July 27, 2021, Simone Biles stood at the end of the vault runway, sprinted 25 meters, downgraded her planned vault, landed awkwardly and eventually walked off the competition floor. She would not finish the team final at the Tokyo Games, the team would settle for silver and Biles would spend the time between Olympic cycles dogged by doubters, criticisms and questions.
This was not a do-over; a do-over would imply Biles wanted to erase what happened to her. And she needed it, even as painful as it was to live it, in order to go forward — as an athlete, as a woman. To become the gymnast she is now, Biles had to confront her past and prioritize her mental health.
If not a do-over, this was at least a second chance. Biles returned to the exact place it all went off-kilter the last time, where the twisties left the world’s greatest gymnast so lost she told her coaches, “I don’t trust myself,” before opting to withdraw. This time she started her day with her therapist, a weekly appointment she has kept sacrosanct for years. Biles told her she felt calm and ready, which is exactly how she appeared when she stepped up for her first event.
At the end of a different vault runway in a different city at a different Olympics, Biles vaulted. It was not her hardest vault, her typical Yurchenko double pike “downgraded” to a still incredibly hard Cheng likely in deference to the calf injury she suffered in qualifications on Sunday. The U.S. didn’t need the points, and Biles still has to vault twice more in Paris, in the all-around and the vault event final.
The vault itself didn’t matter; it’s what happened afterward. Biles threw her hands over her head and smiled a megawatt smile. She high-fived her coach, Laurent Landi, high-fived her teammates and beamed, that grin essentially serving as a dagger to every other gymnast in Bercy Arena. As soon as Biles smiled, the competition was effectively over. “After I finished, it was just, phew,” Biles said with a smile. “At least there were no flashbacks or anything. As soon as I landed that vault I thought, ‘Oh yeah we’re going to do this.”
She wasn’t wrong. The same team that had to regroup on the fly after Biles withdrew in Tokyo, their faces taut with the pressure of the moment, enjoyed a near coronation.
They practically skipped between rotations, smiling and waving to the very partisan USA crowd. Biles blew kisses at the camera; Jordan Chiles danced; Sunisa Lee clapped along with the music and Jade Carey looked up in the stands as fans started a USA chant.
Since 2011 the U.S. has lost exactly one World Championship or Olympic team competition — the one in Tokyo, where Russia took the gold and the U.S. settled for silver. Injuries at this year’s Trials, however, conspired to reunite the quartet for another quad and Chellsie Memmel and Alicia Sacramone Quinn, Team USA’s technical and strategy directors, opted to send those four women (and not Hezly Rivera) to the floor for a four-for-four shot at redemption.
Not shy at admitting how badly they wanted the gold, the four women went out and took it. Challenging the U.S. was never going to be easy; Team USA made sure it wasn’t even a consideration. Even a few balance beam bobbles and a Chiles’ fall on a beam mount couldn’t open the door for a real challenge, their difficulty is just too high and their execution too reliable. In the end, the United States easily outpaced silver medalist Italy, Lee tying for the event’s highest score on balance beam, Biles outdistancing the competition on floor and vault. She is now the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast in history with eight total medals, surpassing Shannon Miller.
It was about and for all of them, four incredible gymnasts shining in the moment they were denied previously. They celebrated each other’s successes — Lee jumped up in the air like a pogo stick as Chiles finished her floor routine — and then they celebrated their group success. They sprinted from one side of the floor to the next, an American flag unfurling behind them, the picture of uncomplicated joy.
They climbed atop the medal podium hand in hand, letting go only to grip the gold medals dangling from their necks. They join a very select sorority of American team gold medalists — the Final Five (2016), Fierce Five (2012) and the Magnificent Seven (1996), lacking only a team name. Aly Raisman, a part of the ‘12 and ‘16 teams, grabbed a mic at the post-meet press conference to ask what they had named themselves. The woman fumbled around for an answer, agreeing only to answer in initials but then Biles messed up, mixing a few words in, enough so the answer became clear — F-Around and Find Out. They admitted it wouldn’t do. Exiting the interview room, asked Raisman for a suggestion. She thought for a minute and said, “I’m not sure,” she said. “It hast be something special, after all that they’ve been through.”
Each has, in fact, had her share of difficulties. Along with Biles, Lee overcame a pair of debilitating kidney diseases; Chiles had to work her back onto the roster after being skipped for the 2023 World Championship team and Carey, too, had to earn her way onto the squad again. Older and maybe even a little harder from their experiences, they pushed back on the traditional constraints of their sport. They did not tolerate what they previously had been told to tolerate, taking ownership of their own destinies and prioritizing their own needs.
Before the team final, they talked about it, forcing a hard conversation where they admitted they were, at times, going through the motions of taking care of one another. “Our team, it’s just different this time around,” Lee said. “We had so many expectations on us, but we did what we’re supposed to do and we had fun with it. That’s the most important thing.”
That message started with and stemmed directly from Biles, her heft as a gymnast adding gravity to the messaging.
It is, of course, always about Biles. She is the draw and the curiosity, a GOAT ready to awe everyone, including more of her herd. Michael Phelps and Serena Williams were among the fans in the Bercy Arena stands. An hour before the competition began, the public address announcer tossed to a “special” video on the big board — a one-minute montage of Biles. At a team final. That is the reality of Biles; no one is even pretending she’s not different than everyone else. It is a combination of what she does and what she went through, her nearly inhuman skill set intersecting directly with her very human mental health struggles.
Technically Biles put all of this to bed a year ago, back when she returned to competition and picked up where she left off — once again winning every all-around competition she entered, just as she has since 2013. But this was The Moment, the capital T, capital M gut check she needed to get through.
Biles does not, however, merely get through things. She owns them. Her lowest score — a 14.366 on the balance beam — would be plenty of gymnasts’ good days. Fittingly she finished at center stage, on the floor exercise, the last athlete to compete in the entire meet. A spotlight moment for a woman who has drawn attention like a magnet for more than a decade, and reflected the light back in kind.
As Biles walked onto the floor, Spike Lee stood up, head cheerleader for a crowd teeming with excitement. To the surprise of perhaps no one in all of France, Biles delivered a moment to remember. When she landed her final tumbling pass, all of Bercy Arena came to its feet.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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