Simone Biles wins all-around gold at 2024 Paris Olympics

Simone Biles is continuing her dominance at the 2024 Paris Olympics, taking gold in the women’s all-around gymnastics competition on Thursday night in Paris. Her performance, a masterful display against two of her top rivals, repeated her 2016 Rio triumph and has spun brand-new narratives for the sport’s greatest of all time.

Under the bright lights of Bercy Arena, Biles was the top attraction for celebrities from around the world—and especially the United States, including several current and former Olympians. The Black Catholic aerialist was in top form, beginning with her signature Yurchenko Double Pike vault to lead off the competition with a high-flying score.

Biles quickly made the sign of the cross after landing the move, one of the highest-scoring in the sport, with a significant hop. She smirked to her coaches, indicating her relief that she had once again conquered the toughest part of her all-around campaign and built a comfortable points cushion.

She would only briefly surrender her lead during the four-part competition. She faced a sustained challenge from Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade. but by the end of the night Biles was wearing Olympic gold for the sixth time in her career—an American record in gymnastics.

Despite her strong start in the competition, Biles gave the roaring crowd a scare thereafter, nearly brushing her knees to the floor in her uneven bars routine. It was an unexpected mistake in an apparatus she usually keeps simple, saving her most difficult attempts for other events. The low score dropped her to third in the standings, behind Andrade and Italy’s Alice D'Amato, necessitating nearly flawless showings in Biles’ rotations thereafter.

Fellow American Sunisa Lee also added pressure with solid showings, including a nearly perfect floor routine that secured a bronze-medal finish for the defending all-around champion. This year was the first time in Olympic history that two former all-around gold medalists went head-to-head in the finals.

Lee and Biles had the opportunity to make history as the first woman since the 1960s (and the first-ever American woman) to win twice in the event, an opening on which Biles capitalized after last winning in 2016. She notably crashed out of the Tokyo Olympics, and after Thursday’s competition noted that her mental health has remained a constant focus in her triumphant comeback.

“Leading up to Tokyo, I was so nervous about getting injured, like physically, that I kind of neglected my mental health,” she told reporters. “I've been in therapy religiously, every Thursday, and now whenever I need it.”

Those efforts have paid off handsomely, as Biles bounced back from her uneven bars gaffe with a stellar performance on the balance beam after being seen in stoic meditation in the waiting area. She later said she was praying “to refocus and recenter” herself for the rest of the competition.

Though she regained only a slight lead over Andrade, she was fully in her element on the final apparatus, the floor exercises. There, she levied a characteristically supreme routine to seal a first-place finish, much to the delight of the arena crowd.

Biles’ win increases her record as the most decorated gymnast in history, including 39 Olympic and world championship medals over an 11-year career. She is the second-oldest Olympic women’s all-around gold medalist at 27 years old, only trailing the Soviet Union’s Maria Gorokhovskaya, who won at age 30 in 1952.

This year also marks the sixth consecutive Olympics with an American winning the women’s all-around, dating back to Carly Patterson in 2004. The Paris podium is also believed to be the first in Olympic history to feature all women of color as medalists, with the Afro-Brazilian Andrade taking silver for the second year in a row.

She will join Biles and Lee in competition with the world’s best in the individual event finals this weekend, beginning with the vault finals on Saturday. Biles will compete in that event, followed by the balance beam and floor exercises on Monday.

Nate Tinner-Williams is co-founder and editor of Black Catholic Messenger.

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