It came down to the final floor routine for Simone Biles, but her legacy as the greatest American Olympic gymnast has been cemented.
Biles out-dueled Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade to capture another gold medal in a closer-than-expected women’s all-around competition Thursday at the 2024 Paris Olympics. It’s the second gold medal for Biles at these Games after she helped the United States win the team competition earlier this week to give her the most Olympic medals by an American gymnast in history.
In front of another star-studded crowd that included the likes of Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant and Seth Rogen, Biles recovered after a miscue on the uneven bars and captured her second women’s all-around Olympic gold medal. She won gold in the all-around competition during the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and now has nine medals over her Olympic career. American teammate Suni Lee, who won the all-around gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics after Biles pulled out due to the “twisties,” took home the bronze medal.
Given Biles’ popularity, and all she went through in Tokyo three years ago, Americans everywhere rejoiced at her return to the top of the Olympic podium. Here’s a sampling of the reaction to Biles’ floor routine and Team USA picking up yet another gold medal in the women’s gymnastics team competition at the Olympics:
