2024-08-02 16:00:02
The world watched in awe as Biles, undeterred by past challenges and setbacks, delivered a performance for the ages in Paris.
Biles started her evening on vault, launching her eponymous Yurchenko double pike into the stratosphere for an early lead of 0.666 points.
Biles admitted after the competition that she originally wasn’t planning to compete the Yurchenko double pike, but ultimately decided she could benefit from the score boost to distance herself from Andrade.
“I don’t want to compete with Rebeca no more – I’m tired,” Biles joked. “She’s way too close. I’ve never had an athlete that close, so it definitely put me on my toes and it brought out the best athlete (in me) … I’m getting uncomfortable guys! I was stressing.”
In the second rotation, Biles mistimed her Pak Salto on the uneven bars. As a result, she had a large knee bend and also took an extra swing to get her rhythm back.
“I’m not sure what the camera caught or what I was doing,” Biles said. “I was probably praying to every single God out there; trying to refocus and re-center myself because that’s not the bars that I’ve been training. Out of all the events, I think bars is the one I haven’t messed up once the whole entire training here or back in Houston. So just refocusing and making sure that as soon as we go to beam, since I’m first up, I can just re-center myself and finish the rest of the competition because its not over until its over.”
Biles temporarily slipped in the standings, but rallied back on balance beam and sealed the deal with an electric floor routine in the final rotation.
Andrade, who is widely considered to be Biles’ biggest rival, is riding a high after helping lead Team Brazil to an historic team bronze medal. Andrade started the competition with a stuck Cheng and didn’t look back, locking in her fourth career Olympic medal.
“I’m just very happy and grateful,” Andrade said. “It was a tough competition. It’s very difficult to have three days of competition (qualification, team final and then the individual all-around), but I’m very happy with how I performed.”
