United States gymnast Simone Biles competes in the beam event of the women’s individual all-around final of the Artistic Gymnastics at the Olympic Arena during the Rio 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro on August 11, 2016.
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The eyes of the world were on Biles on Thursday as she competed in the Olympic Women’s Gymnastics All-Around event.
She waited patiently for her final scores to be posted, clutching her teammate and fellow competitor Aly Raisman as they watched the big board.
Biles ended up beating Raisman by 2.1 points; however, their wins marked only the second time that two USA gymnasts have finished 1-2 in an Olympic all-around. She took silver in the women’s 50 freestyle and then anchored as the USA women won the 4×100 medley.
And now it appears both gymnast Simone Biles and swimmer Simone Manuel are basking in each other’s greatness after triumphing in their respective sports.
“I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps”. Biles jumped up on the mats to wave to the crowd – she had done it, a gold medal at the Olympics. “That’s very cool”, she said.
In a photo on Instagram, Raisman typed out a widely reported quote from Biles about her, and the quote couldn’t be more genuine and supportive.
As evidenced by two viral tweets, Biles’ and Manuel’s wins are monumentally significant because of the message they send to other young black women – who often aren’t celebrated in popular media.
Biles has been targeted because of a combination of her color and her success.
“When Aly started to cry, I told her to stop, because I knew I’d start crying”, Biles said, who hadn’t performed the floor exercise yet.
‘I’m just the same Simone.
Simone Biles doesn’t need much encouragement to either take a selfie in the athletes’ village, or to post it on her social media accounts.
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Perhaps we’ve just been introduced to two members of #TeamUSA in the 2032 Olympics.
