PARIS (AP) — Simone Biles and the rest of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team walked onto the floor at Bercy Arena on Sunday in leotards adorned with thousands of crystals, the kind designed to attract as much attention as possible.
Don’t mistake all that glamour — both on the floor and in the stands, where Tom Cruise and Ariana Grande were among those who took in the spectacle — for a lack of grit.
The oldest team the Americans have ever brought to the Games has endured plenty through the years, from health scares to losses in their personal life. Those experiences have prepared them for whatever may come, perhaps Biles most of all.
So when the most decorated gymnast of all time felt a tweak during her floor exercise warm-up on Sunday, she didn’t panic. Neither did her teammates.
Biles briefly retreated to the back so coach Laurent Landi could essentially mummify the bottom of her left leg, then came back out and helped fuel a team that looks every bit as good as advertised.
With Biles — achy calf and all — putting up the highest score on vault and floor exercise and reigning Olympic champion Sunisa Lee looking perhaps as good as ever on uneven bars, the U.S. posted a total of 172.296, doing little to dampen the expectation that Tuesday night’s team final will be more of a coronation for a team that has called this trip to the Games part of their “Redemption Era.”
“They’re happy and relieved,” U.S. coach Cecile Landi said. “Day one, now moving on to team finals, all-around finals, a couple event finals hopefully.”
Italy was second in qualifying, finishing more than five points behind the Americans at 166.681, a massive gap in a sport where events are typically decided by mere tenths, if not less. China finished third at 166.628, followed by Brazil at 166.429.
Japan, Canada and Britain also advanced to the team final. So did Romania, a former superpower in the sport that had missed each of the last two Games after the national team program fell into disarray following the 2012 Olympics.
Biles, despite walking with a noticeable limp, paced the all-around at 59.566, with Brazilian star Rebeca Andrade, the best gymnast not named Biles over the last three years, in second at 57.700. Lee was third at 56.132.
The top 24 finishers in the all-around and the top eight in each event advance to the finals later in the Games.
The U.S.’s score made it look like business as usual. It wasn’t for Biles, who Landi said tweaked a calf issue that initially cropped up a couple of weeks ago. Biles thought she had it under control until she warmed up on floor exercise.
After a few anxious moments, there Biles was, putting together another floor routine packed with the kind of difficulty no other gymnast in the world can approach.
It was the same on vault, where she slightly overcooked her signature Yurchenko double pike, proof the calf was good enough for her to generate the kind of speed necessary to perform perhaps the single most breathtaking skill being done in the sport.
“What she was able to do, with looking like she had some soreness or something in her lower leg, is remarkable,” said Chellsie Memmel, the co-lead of the U.S. women’s program.
