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Olympic gymnastics live: Simone Biles goes for all-around gold in Paris
By Beau Dure,
5 hours ago
Simone Biles competes on the vault during the women’s all-around final. Photograph: Morry Gash/AP
6.40pm BST
Nemour is up now, and she somehow manages to avoid falling, windmilling her arms to stay up. Several other parts of the routine look tentative, but she lands it.
Saraiva is up now on floor, and she should get some sort of medal for sheer determination …
… and as I type that, she bounces out of the square and lands on her stomach.
Still, she has a big smile and has the crowd on her side. She blows a kiss as her music sounds its last note.
6.37pm BST
My mistake – Kinsella was just on uneven bars, not vault, and she posted a 14.133. She may be in line for a top-10 finish at least.
6.35pm BST
D’Amato posts her best beam score of the Games, a 14.033. She’s 1.232 points behind Biles and won’t challenge for gold unless catastrophe strikes, but she’s in the hunt for a medal.
On floor exercise, Ou Yushan falls to the mat after attempting a combination. Qiu Qiyuan just went and got a 13.233.
Alice Kinsella pops up with a 13.800 on vault.
6.32pm BST
Italy’s Alice d’Amato looks to be Suni Lee’s biggest competition for bronze. She didn’t break the 14-point mark in qualifying or the team event.
Her routine doesn’t dazzle like Biles’ routine, but it’s solid.
She gets treatment from a trainer on her ankle or foot immediately after leaving the mat. Seems preventative.
Peeking in on floor – Ruby Pass is shaking with nerves. It’s a 12.966.
Updated at 6.33pm BST
6.29pm BST
Biles had a 14.733 in qualifying. Then a 14.366 in the team event.
Her score here .. 14.566.
Andrade may have to go huge now.
6.27pm BST
Deep breath … phew … here we go.
Clean leap onto the beam. Clean back flip. Nice spin. Clean front flip. Big pass with three back flips, all solid.
Maybe a slight wobble on her next flip, but nothing major.
And a very solid landing, with just a slight hop.
Biles looks ecstatic.
6.25pm BST
The outlook
In qualifying, Biles got a 14.733 on beam and a 14.600 on floor.
Andrade got a 14.500 and a 13.900.
Nemour got a 13.200 and a 13.166.
Bottom line – Biles will likely dominate on the floor. If she stays on the beam, she’s likely to win.
Talk all you want about free throws or penalty kicks. What kind of pressure is comparable to having to nail a routine on a piece of wood that’s four inches wide?
We won’t have long to wait. Biles is up first …
6.20pm BST
Standings at the halfway point
29.766 Andrade 29.566 Nemour 29.499 Biles 28.800 D’Amato 28.799 Lee
That’s five of the six gymnasts traveling in the lead pack and moving next to balance beam. The expectation before we started tonight was that the medalists would come from this group, and that’s still likely.
28.400 Qiu 28.166 Saraiva 27.999 Ou 27.199 Pass 26.999 Black
Team GB’s gymnasts are the class of their traveling group right now. Fenton is tied for 13th with Esposito, who fell on uneven bars, and Kinsella is 15th.
6.15pm BST
14.866 for Lee, which moves her up to fifth, but just 0.001 behind fourth-place D’Amato.
On beam, Brazil’s Flavia Saraiva gets a 14.266 on beam, landing between the two Chinese gymnasts in seventh for now.
Updated at 6.21pm BST
6.13pm BST
Oh my … how someone can fall flat on her face in a warmup, endure a near-endless wait and then go out and dazzle so emphatically on uneven bars is beyond my comprehension.
Suni Lee is not out of this.
6.11pm BST
Nemour passes Biles
Again, to repeat, this is likely temporary. Kaylia Nemour just did by far her best event and attempted a routine with a 7.200 difficulty score.
But for the moment, after a 15.533, Nemour is now 0.200 behind Andrade – and 0.067 ahead of Biles.
Now up – Suni Lee. Can she get into contention?
Updated at 6.14pm BST
6.10pm BST
The Chinese gymnasts made up some ground on beam. Qiu Qiyuan scored 14.500 and is 1.366 points back of Andrade, 1.099 behind Biles. Ou Yushan got a 14.033.
And we have an Australian contender – Ruby Pass got a 13.466.
6.08pm BST
All eyes on Kaylie Nemour, the overwhelming favorite to take gold in the uneven bars final later in the Games. She’s not as good on the next two apparatuses, so to contend for the all-around, she’ll have to nail this routine.
Most gymnasts probably don’t want to hear Laurie Hernandez says, “Saves it!” in the midst of a routine, but she recovers control and goes back and forth, back and forth with hardly a pause in the action.
Should be a pretty big score.
It was a 12.800 for Esposito after that fall.
6.03pm BST
Bear in mind – in the team event, Andrade outscored Biles on vault and uneven bars. Biles more than made up the difference in the last two apparatuses.
Italy’s Manila Esposito has a nasty fall on uneven bars and takes a considerable amount of time to compose herself before resuming. She swings around the bar many times before finally flying off for her dismount.
Her teammate, Alice d’Amato , did even better than Andrade with a 14.800 on uneven bars.
Updated at 6.15pm BST
5.59pm BST
Andrade takes the lead
It’s an excruciating wait for Biles’ score.
Finally, it’s … 13.733??
Oh my. She trails Andrade.
Ellie Black got a 12.933 on beam, which probably ends any chances of challenging Biles or Andrade.
5.57pm BST
And Biles answers.
This is her worst apparatus. Laurie Hernandez spots a mistake, but she avoids touching the floor, and she lands as if she’s hopping down to the mat from a 2-inch step, not a high bar.
5.55pm BST
Well now … Andrade impresses again.
The Brazilian flies between the bars as if she has springs in her hands, but she has no trouble stopping her momentum to do a clean handstand.
It’s a 14.666. That’s even better than she did in qualifying and team event. Difficulty was 6.2.
Georgia-Mae Fenton has a 13.633 on vault.
5.52pm BST
I watch the balance beam peeking out from my fingers because it always seems that they’re an inch from disaster, but I’ll keep an eye on that with one screen while following uneven bars on my main one.
Suni Lee has been great on uneven bars – except in warmups. She falls, again. Not hurt, though.
5.46pm BST
Scores after Rotation 1
Reminder that we’re heading into Biles’ weakest event, uneven bars. It’s Suni Lee’s best event, and Kaylia Nemour is off the charts here.
Kinsella has slight hops on two of her landings, but she successfully pulls off a combination, landing and then bouncing back up for another flip/twist or two. Nicely done.
But the difficulty score is only 4.900, and it’s a 12.833.
The IOC stats feed tells us Kinsella’s father played football for Walsall, Swindon and Cheltenham and played 48 times for Ireland.
Brazil’s Flavia Saraiva , who competed in the team event with a bandaged forehead, is the last athlete on uneven bars. She looked serious and furious all through the team event but is all smiles after landing a strong routine.
5.38pm BST
It’s a 14.033 for Nemour, the third-best score on vault.
Alice Kinsella is on the floor now.
Updated at 6.17pm BST
5.37pm BST
That’s a 13.866 for Esposito. Shows what I know.
Qiu gets a 13.900 on uneven bars, which shows how solid she was outside of the fall.
The vault moves quickly, and Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour is up last – now. Not bad, but clearly not in the Andrade/Biles stratosphere.
5.35pm BST
Italy’s Alice d’Amato gets a 14.000 with a well-executed vault.
Teammate Manila Esposito barely gets around on her vault. I’m going to guess – 13.325.
Stephen Curry is here.
5.33pm BST
In third place overall in the early going, it’s Canada’s Ellie Black with a 14.066 on uneven bars.
Qiu is up now on bars, and she’s unable to catch the bar on a difficult move and slips to the floor. That’ll be a deduction. She comes back with a fantastic finish, though.
5.31pm BST
Biles opens with a 15.766
My goodness.
6.4 difficulty, 9.366 execution.
Updated at 6.19pm BST
5.30pm BST
Biles lands it!
She’ll get knocked down a bit for a big hop on the landing, but she did the most difficult vault in women’s gymnastics clearly.
Georgia-Mae Fenton has a 13.033 on floor.
5.29pm BST
Andrade matches her score from the team final – 15.100!
Up to Biles now, attempting the Yurchenko double pike, for which the difficulty score is astroronomical.
5.28pm BST
Suni Lee’s score is disappointing. It’s 13.933, two tenths lower than her qualifying score. But it’s a solid execution score of 8.933. The difficult was 5.000, which will not be in the same league as …
Rebeca Andrade , who just soars, flips and lands cleanly. She could take an early lead on Biles here.
5.27pm BST
Team GB’s Georgia-Mae Fenton is doing a floor routine to a symphonic version of Another Brick in the Wall. Interesting.
Japan’s Haruka Nakamura gets a 13.700 on beam.
5.25pm BST
The first score of the night is in – Germany’s Sarah Voss with a 12.866 on floor.
Still waiting on Lee’s score.
5.24pm BST
Suni Lee is up first. She seems clean in the air but lands considerably off-center with a little hop. She doesn’t seem overjoyed.
5.23pm BST
I apparently don’t have the “multiview” option that I had for the team event, so I’ll just say I think Germany’s Sarah Voss has cool music on the floor exercise.
Might be nice if the main feed would show other routines instead of 30 seconds of Suni Lee pacing, but …
5.18pm BST
Athlete introductions are just underway, because gymnastics is almost like a US sport in the sense that the posted start time isn’t really the start time.
Kaylia Nemour, who used to represent France, gets a nice roar from the crowd. Then Suni Lee and Rebeca Andrade draw an even louder reception. Then comes Simone Biles. I’d like to see a decibel reading on that.
5.13pm BST
A question has come in about BBC coverage and where to watch this. Being in the USA, I haven’t the foggiest. Can anyone share?
5.12pm BST
Rotation 1 preview
Biles and Andrade should leap out in front on the vault. Biles’ 15.800 in qualifying was the highest score on any apparatus in qualifying. Nemour was the only person to come close to that with a 15.600 on uneven bars.
Lee, Nemour and Esposito also broke 14 on the vault.
Qiu starts on her strongest apparatus by far, uneven bars, on which she posted a 15.066 in qualifying. None of her other scores were above 14.
5.02pm BST
Schedule
The top six in qualifying (Biles, Andrade, Lee, D’Amato, Esposito, Nemour) will start on vault.
The group on uneven bars will include the two Chinese gymnasts (Qiu Qiyuan, Ou Yushan), along with Canadian Elsabeth Black and Australian Ruby Pass.
Team GB’s Georgia-Mae Fenton and Alice Kinsella will start on floor exercise.
4.41pm BST
Score breakdown
How did the top contenders here fare in qualifying and in the team event? Glad you asked …
Qualifying (Overall score, then vault, uneven bars, beam and floor)
Biles: 14.900, 14.400, 14.366, 14.666. Her vault was less challenging than what she attempted in qualifying. Her beam routine was just slightly less spectacular.
Andrade: 15.100, 14.533, 14.133, 14.200
Lee: no vault, 14.566, 14.600, 13.533. Huge improvement on beam.
(Nemour did not compete)
Esposito: 14.166, no bars, 13.966, 12.666. Maybe dealt with some nerves on floor.
D’Amato: 13.933, 14.633, 13.933, 13.466
Qiu: 13.133, 14.300, 14.600, no floor
4.19pm BST
Preamble
Welcome to the women’s gymnastics all-around final, where we will be following the biggest story of the Games …
What will be the impact of Big Parma on this event?
Well, that and the prospect of watching Simone Biles, the greatest women’s gymnast of all time, winning the all-around title eight years after doing so in Rio and three years after having to drop out in Tokyo.
Or maybe seeing Suni Lee go back-to-back after a couple of years in the relative wilderness.
Or maybe seeing Rebeca Andrade become the first Brazilian to win one of the most cherished gold medals of the Olympics.
We’ll be underway in about an hour. Let’s watch …
4.15pm BST
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s how the team event went down:
Of course there was theatre at the very end. Two hours into this women’s Artistic Gymnastics Team final, with the USA coasting grandly at the head of the field, the logistics of competition left Simone Biles with one final act to stop the show.
Three years on from Tokyo and The Breakdown, the only discipline remaining in that same team event was the Biles floor routine. And so in front of Bill Gates, Gianni Infantino, Serena Williams and Spike Lee, in front of the eyes of the world as ever, Simone Biles got to dance like no one was watching.
Paris 2024 knew what it was getting with these gymnastics, a spectacle that would play out, as it did here, like a cross between the Super Bowl, Vegas and a Marvel movie. Mainly it was getting America: American flash, American show, American story-telling, the key event in a Games that has for many editions now been powered by US TV money and US sport tourism. Frankly, there haven’t been this many Americans in Paris since 1945.
And of course Paris was getting the Biles-industrial complex, the Biles narrative arc, which reached its full extension on a wonderful night of flex and twang and defiance of the elements; one that ended, naturally, with gold for the US women.
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