Despite suffering a leg injury during Olympic gymnastics qualifying, Simone Biles takes first place.
Gymnast Simone Biles looked to hurt her leg during a warm-up performance on her first day of competition at the 2024 Olympic Games. Although this prompted anxiety, she was still able to complete her routines and finish in first place.
Cecile Landi, Biles’s coach, minimized the injury’s importance following the competition. Landi remarked, “She felt a little something in her calf.”
Biles achieved great results in spite of the injury, setting a competition record of 15.8 on the vault. It was sufficient, when accompanied by impressive performances from her teammates, to guarantee the U.S. women’s gymnastics team a position in the team all-around final on Tuesday, when the country is the clear favorite to win gold. This Thursday is the individual all-around final.
According to Landi, there are “at the moment” no worries regarding Biles’s capacity to participate in such competitions.
It seemed like Biles injured her leg warming up for the floor exercise, which was her second machine of the evening. Following a successful pass, Biles carefully left the mat, conferred with her coaches, and momentarily vanished from sight. She then went back to have thick athletic tape applied to her ankle and lower calf.
Biles continued to perform her remaining routines in spite of the injury, reaching a peak vault score of 15.8. According to Landi, the subject of whether she would continue was “never in her mind”.
There are extremely high expectations for Biles and the entire American women’s gymnastics team at the current Olympic Games in Paris.
Since she resumed competition last year following a two-year break, Biles, 27, has been operating at the peak of her career. Along with a gold medal for the United States’ team all-around performance, she is seen as the favorite to win at least three individual gold medals.
Landi disclosed that Biles had momentarily encountered a problem with her calf earlier in the month. “That’s when it stopped. then a little bit today as well,” Landi remarked.
At the end of the qualification phase, the U.S. women’s team held the top team ranking. About 3.5 points behind Biles were gymnasts Jordan Chiles and Sunisa Lee, the reigning individual all-around gold medallist.
“Their goal, it’s very obvious, is to come home with a gold medal,” Memmel stated.
In three of the rounds on Sunday, Biles finished last. She so attracted the full focus of a throng of roughly 15,000, many of whom, including celebrities Snoop Dogg, Tom Cruise, and Anna Wintour, had come primarily to observe her while her rivals rested.
She was redeemed on the next occasion.
Carey’s vault score in the final was 14.433, using a Cheng and a double-twisting Yurchenko, which she can upgrade to an Amanar (2.5 twists). Biles is anticipated to compete with Carey for an Olympic vault medal. Biles is the one who executed her eponymous Yurchenko double pike, or “Biles II” vault, flawlessly.
Team USA’s technical lead coach, Chellsie Memmel, described the group’s tenacity as “I think they rallied together.” “I believe that demonstrates the strength of their team spirit because they came together, turned the page after a setback, and supported one another,”
In bars, where she currently has the bronze medal from the Olympics, Lee earned her spot in the all-around final. Lee won it by less than a tenth, but it was a tall order for her to overcome Jordan Chiles with a 14.800. She chose a little safer route, eliminating a challenging connection to score a 14.866. That also guaranteed her a berth in the bars final.
Chiles, like Gabby Douglas and Jordyn Wieber before her, was left in the unenviable situation of being the third-best gymnast on the world’s most successful women’s gymnastics team. Due to the two-gymnast-per-country rule, Chiles will not progress to the all-around finals even though she finished third in the all-around rankings following the second divisional.
It was not as though she gave up easily.
Chiles made a spectacular comeback to the Olympics, excelling in all four events — a far cry from her disappointing qualifying result in Tokyo. Biles, who is also Chiles’ training partner, is about to join her in the floor final. In the event at the 2022 World Championships, she took home a silver medal.
Not only is Hezly Rivera, 16, the youngest member of the squad USA delegation, but she is also the youngest member of the U.S. gymnastics squad. Rivera will be happy with her 13.900 on the bars, even though she struggled with nerves during her Olympic debut and didn’t reach her full ability.
In the team final on Tuesday, the American women’s gymnastics team will compete for a gold medal.
