PARIS (AP) — Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles and Sunisa Lee spent the night before perhaps the biggest gymnastics meet of their lives restless.
There was a tension in the air. They'd all been in the Olympic spotlight before, experiences that left them with medals but also the kind of scars — be they physical, psychological or both — that heal but never really go away.
And here they were in Paris, the leaders of a star-laden U.S. team everyone expected to finish atop the medal stand, and something wasn't right.
In a different time, in a different era, it might have festered. Might have followed them onto the floor at Bercy Arena and into the history books, too.
This is not a different time. This is not a different era. This is now.
So the oldest team the U.S. has ever sent to the Olympics, a group that has spent their respective careers breaking barriers about what a female gymnast can and can't do, what they can and can't be, did something they never used to do.
They talked, with Biles — three years removed from a Tokyo Games that dragged the conversation around mental health and sports kicking and screaming into the light — right in the middle of it.
“I think there was a little bit of struggle,” she said. “So it was really needed.”
By the time they walked onto the floor for the Olympic final, the tension was gone, largely replaced with joy.
And not soon after, gold.
The self-described “Redemption Tour," the moniker given to a team filled with women who wanted to return to the Games for deeply personal reasons, ended with Biles and the Americans where they have almost always been since she burst onto the scene 11 years ago: on top of the podium, the rest of the world looking up.
Eight years after winning gold in Rio with a group that called Aly Raisman grandma because she was all of 22, Biles — now 27 and married — was back again with Jade Carey (24), Chiles (23), Lee (21) and teenager Hezly Rivera at her side.
“We don’t have to be put in the box anymore,” Biles said.
No, they don't.
With Biles at her show-stopping best, the Americans' total of 171.296 was well clear of Italy and Brazil and the exclamation point of a yearlong run in which Biles has cemented her legacy as the greatest ever in her sport, and among the best in the history of the Olympics.
“She's the greatest of all greats,” said Chiles, who now has gold to go with the team silver she, Lee and Biles earned in Tokyo, when Biles removed herself from the team final to protect herself.
Chiles, who seemed like a longshot to make it this spring after injuries piled up, was pretty good in her own right. She began the night by drilling her double-twisting Yurchenko vault, sending the Americans on a four-apparatus stop on their “Tour” that felt equal parts coronation and celebration.
By the time Biles, the left calf that bothered her during qualifying heavily taped, stepped onto the floor for the final event — a floor exercise set to music by Taylor Swift and Beyonce — it was over.
She joked she knew she simply needed to stay on her feet to win. She did more than that, providing an exclamation point on the U.S.'s third gold in its last four trips to the Games.
The Americans remain peerless (if not flawless, this is gymnastics after all) when at their best.
And over two hours in front of a crowd that included everyone from tennis great Serena Williams and actor Natalie Portman, Biles left little doubt about anything.
Her status as the sport's greatest of all time. Her ability to move past the “twisties” that derailed her in Japan. Her spot in the pantheon of the U.S. Olympic movement.
She now has a staggering 38 medals in major international competitions. Eight of those have come under the Olympic rings, moving her past Shannon Miller for the most by an American gymnast.
Yet her return wasn't so much about winning. That's never really been the point anyway, just a byproduct of her unparalleled excellence. It was about a joy she had lost somewhere along the way.
It seems to have returned. She leaned into the crowd that roared at every flip, every leap and, yes, every twist. With her husband — on break from NFL training camp — waving an American flag while sitting next to her parents, Biles did what she has done so well for so long save for a couple of difficult days in Japan during a pandemic: she dominated.
Biles met with her therapist in the morning to put her in the right mindset. There was brief — very brief — moment of trepidation as she raced down the vault runway, the event that began to spin out of control in Tokyo.
Only this time, she essentially stuck her Cheng vault, the one that sends her spinning through the air in a fraction of a second.
Afterward, she exhaled.
“I was like ‘Yes, please no flashbacks or anything,'” Biles said. “But I did feel a lot of relief. And as soon as I landed I was like ’Oh yeah, we’re going to do this.'"
Yes they were. Just like always.
The only real drama centered on who would finish next to the Americans on the medal stand.
Italy, which was a surprising second to the U.S. during qualifying, returned to the podium for the first time since 1928 by holding off Brazil for silver.
Yet there was no question about the top spot. There rarely ever is when Biles is involved.
The road back to this moment has been difficult at times. Uncertain. They felt the weight of everything on Monday night. Rather than let it weigh them down, they shed it.
“I think the talk that we had yesterday definitely helped all of us like come together tonight," Lee said. “And it just made it so much more special.”
___
AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
