Biles is the most decorated American female gymnast in World Championship history. “I don’t see anyone else win three world championships and an Olympic title”. This was no longer a competition. Before an appreciative crowd Thursday at the Olympic gymnastics arena, she capped off her latest with a floor exercise that included a move that is named after her. Her glitter makeup and the sequined stars and stripes on her red, white and blue leotard sparkled under the bright lights.
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And after that, Biles took your breath and any lingering skepticism away.
In Antwerp, Nanning and Glasgow she flew through the air faster and higher than her rivals, completing her acrobatic tumbles with solid landings.
The men of Fiji’s rugby sevens team took home the gold medal – the nation’s first piece of hardware since joining the Olympic games in 1956.
The inevitable could not have been more thrilling.
Biles accumulated 62,198 points in the all-around competition on Thursday, with the silver medal going to her compatriot Alexandra Raisman, with 60,098, and the bronze to Russia’s Aliya Mustafina, with 58,665.
Karolyi called Biles a “force of nature”.
“Well, obviously, yes!” she said with emphasis, as if to say, “Duh!”
She’s so good that Raisman admitted, “I wasn’t reaching to get a gold”. To me, I’m just the same Simone. Every single day you have to become better and better and Simone responded very well to this advice and I am so proud because of this.
Only Nadia Comaneci, who won three gold medals at the 1976 Olympics, even enters the conversation. But she has been around Biles too much to dream bigger. Just like Boorman, she knew.
Asked if her Olympic triumph confirmed her as greatest ever, she shrugged, giggled and shook her head. For as poised as she has been for months, she felt the pressure to live up to her legend. She is the three-time reigning world champion, but who remembers those titles? She needed to bring her excellence to this stage, her sport’s biggest, and join Mary Lou Retton, Carly Patterson, Nastia Liukin and Gabby Douglas on the list of Americans to win the women’s individual all-around in the Olympics. She practices her exercises many times so that she can correct errors quickly. The moment was overwhelming, despite being expected. “I feel like I did my job tonight”, said the 19-year-old. “So it was just kind of a train wreck”.
She was just 0.034 points behind – the equivalent of one wobble – and uneven bars are her “worst” event.
When Biles started, she was out of control. Douglas hit her set and then it was Raisman’s turn and she nearly made the same mistake she made four years earlier, getting off balance on an aerial and coming thisclose to touching the beam with her hands. That allowed Mustafina to hold a slim lead after two rotations. She is as gifted at processing and minimizing pressure as she is performing. “You’re going to freak out”. Now she can say she’s the greatest of all-time. “So she doesn’t use it up”.
“I told her to do it for herself and do it from joy”, Boorman said. Raisman says Biles is “in a different league”.
“She is breaking records left, right and centre”.
A reporter asked Biles if she was happy with her performance.
It has not quite sunk in yet, Biles said. To be considered the greatest, you have to have the greatest title.
“I was nervous a little bit for her today just to come out and do it and make it yours”, Boorman said.
“It’s such an honor to be under that name, I don’t know what to think”, Biles said. So you never can think I am done. “You never know the feeling until it hits you”.
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And then the coach was able to slam anyone insane enough to have had doubts. But still, an all-around gymnastics final that didn’t end with one or both of Team USA’s competitors on the podium simply seemed wrong. She wanted to correct her mistake in that beam routine.
