Days after an injury scare, Simone Biles and her U.S. women’s artistic gymnastics teammates took home the gold in the team finals. It was their first medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics and marked an incredible comeback for the history-making athlete and for Team USA.
Italy took second place, ending the finals with 165.494 points to Team USA’s 171.296. It was Italy’s first-ever Olympic medal for women’s gymnastics, and its first Olympic gymnastics medal overall in almost a century. Brazil’s team won bronze, finishing just shy of a point behind Italy.
The women’s artistic gymnastics team final took place Tuesday at Bercy Arena and featured Biles along with her American teammates Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Sunisa Lee. It was an important contest for the American athletes, who are all returning to the Olympics this year after appearing in previous Games, and especially for Biles, who was forced to leave the competition in 2020 because of a dangerous mental block that prompted her to take herself out of the running.
Biles and Chiles took part in the uneven bars, vault, balance beam and floor exercise events, while Lee competed in every round except the vault, which was Carey’s only event. Just one member of Team USA didn’t participate in Tuesday’s competition — 16-year-old Hezly Rivera, who’s making her Olympic debut this year and still accepted a gold medal alongside her teammates at the awards ceremony.