USA gymnastics runs away with team gold

“Oh my gosh, yeah! Yeeeeaaaahhhh!”

Those were but a couple of the expressions let out by USA gymnastics stars Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey Tuesday afternoon in Paris.

There was good reason for their jubilation.

The aforementioned group of gymnasts combined for one of the more dominant performances in recent Olympic history, a showing that easily propelled Team USA to its first gold medal in the Olympic women’s gymnastics team competition since 2016.

It was a complete team effort, with Biles, Lee, Chiles and Carey all having standout moments.

Biles and Chiles both competed in the all-around, while Lee chipped in on three events and Carey on one.

Combined, the group scored a 14 or better on 9 of 12 routines competed.

Biles, as always, was the headliner though, and she went four-for-four with 14-plus scores on all four events. And with Tuesday’s gold medal, she became the most decorated U.S. gymnast in Olympic history, surpassing the legendary Shannon Miller.

The U.S. team finished the competition with a score of 171.296, far ahead of second place finisher Italy (165.494). The Italians just edged out the Brazilians for the silver medal, in what was a three-team race for silver and bronze (Brazil finished with a 164.497, while Great Britain finished with a 164.263).

The gold-medal-winning performance had a tinge of redemption for Team USA, which won silver at the Tokyo Games after Biles withdrew from the team competition early on.

Lee and Chiles were both a part of that silver medal team (Carey competed as an individual at the 2021 Olympics), and Tuesday’s success all but wiped away any disappointment that may have come from the American team falling short of gold four years ago.

Victory for Team USA was hardly in doubt at any point in the competition. The Americans started the day on vault and after back-to-back-to-back standout vaults from Biles, Chiles and Carey, they never looked back. That despite a fall on balance beam by Chiles and multiple steps out of bounds on floor exercise by Biles, miscues that caused the latter to roll her eyes in annoyance with herself.

Biles told reporters that she “felt a lot of relief” after her vault — as a reminder, she withdrew from competition at the Tokyo Olympics after getting the twisties during her vault in the team competition.

Once she successfully pulled off her vault, Biles thought, “Oh yeah, definitely, we’re gonna do this.”

Mistakes by the other contending teams contributed to Team USA’s runaway win to be sure — miscues by China on uneven bars and beam and Brazil on beam specifically — but had those teams been at their very best, the U.S. likely still would have won. That was the type of performance the Americans put on display in Bercy Arena.

Dominance by the Americans wasn’t a surprise from the outside, especially with Russia not competing in the Olympics, but nerves were nonetheless at a fever pitch yesterday for the U.S. team, ahead of the Tuesday’s team competition.

“I think we were all full of nerves, and we weren’t communicating with each other,” Biles told Gymnastics Now.

A Chiles-led team discussion changed all that, though.

“So that’s kind of the nature of the conversation, just letting each other know that we can lean on each other because we’ve been there,” Biles said. “It’s really hard to be doing what we are doing, and it’s easier if we can lean on each other.”

There were no nerves Tuesday — clearly — and it was such a dominant performance that afterward, following hugs with the Italians and posing for pictures with the American flag in the middle of the floor, what was of most concern to Biles and Lee was what kind of pictures and video they would make later to post on social media. Lee specifically cited one TikTok trend, Biles another.

Biles, Carey, Chiles and Lee aren’t done competing in Paris.

Both Biles and Lee will compete in the individual all-around competition later this week, with Biles and Chiles set to compete for individual medals on floor, Biles and Lee to do the same on beam, Biles and Carey to do the same on vault, while Lee will also compete for an individual medal on bars.

On Tuesday, though, the focus was the team, and for the first time in Olympics competition since 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, USA gymnastics is the best team in the world.

Where was Hezly Rivera?

Missing on the competition floor for Team USA was 16-year old Hezly Rivera, the fifth member of the team. USA gymnastics elected to not have Rivera compete Tuesday during the team final, after her showing during the qualification round.

It was a difficult decision, USA gymnastics’ technical lead Chellsie Memmel told reporters and she made sure to let Rivera know how important her place on the team was, even though she wasn’t competing Tuesday, telling her, “you’re just as important a part of this team as everybody else.”

Rivera was available to compete if needed, Memmel added.

This story will be updated.