Simone Biles has become the most decorated gymnast in the history of the sport, winning her fifth Olympic gold medal overnight alongside her five-woman USA squad at the women’s gymnastics team final.
Team USA were the victors with a combined score of 171.296 — finishing well ahead of the silver medal team, Italy, who finished with 165.494. The bronze medal went to Brazil (164.497) who secured their country’s first team medal in the sport.
Biles and her teammates Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera celebrated their win in front of a jubilant crowd of more than 10,000 at the Bercy Arena in Paris.
Prominent figures sat in the stadium cheering them on, including Bill Gates, Nicole Kidman, Serena Williams, Spike Lee, Natalie Portman and Biles’ husband, Chicago Bears player Jonathan Owens.
“I think we all had something to prove from Tokyo,” Biles told reporters after their win. “And tonight we did just that.”
On her socials, Biles posted a carousel of photos of herself and teammates, writing sarcastically: “lack of talent, lazy, olympic champions,” seemingly to hit back at the people who criticised her for withdrawing at the Toyko Olympics.
US gymnastics technical lead Chellsie Memmel said after the competition: “We all knew she could do it.”
“That wasn’t ever a question in my mind that she could do it and it continues to just solidify her place as the greatest gymnast of all time.”
The US team went home at the Tokyo Olympics with a silver medal, after Biles withdrew from the team final for mental health reasons, and after she suffered from “the twisties” – an under-researched phenomena when a gymnast becomes disorientated in mid-air.
This time, they executed a series of brilliant performances across all four disciplines, snagging the gold for the third time in the last four Summer Olympic Games.
Biles can now boast 38 career medals between the Olympics and world championships. At 27, she is the oldest American woman to make an Olympic gymnastics team since the fifties.
Biles will continue to seek more medals, with her next event taking place on Thursday, where she will compete in the individual all-around final. She has also qualified for the vault, floor exercise and balance beam. If she places in the top three for all of them, she may collect another five medals in total — repeating her victories from Rio in 2016.