Simone Biles won the all-around gymnastics title for her second Olympic gold in Paris and her sixth overall to cement her place back at the top of her sport with yet another sparkling slice of history.
The American, who won the title at Rio 2016 and had been favourite at Tokyo 2020 before she pulled out, became the oldest winner of her sport’s blue-riband event for 72 years in front of yet another celebrity-studded crowd at the Bercy Arena.
Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade took silver and defending champion Sunisa Lee won bronze.
Biles put on a sparkly goat necklace while celebrating – as if there was any doubt about the world’s most decorated gymnast’s status as the GOAT (greatest of all time).
Aged 27, she is the first gymnast to win non-consecutive all-around Olympic titles – a real demonstration of her longevity in a gruelling sport dominated by teenagers over the years.
The past 12 Olympic all-around women’s champions were teenagers, and even the last non-teen, Ludmilla Tourischeva, had only turned 20 a few weeks before she won in 1972.
Biles’ intention was clear from the outset, starting off with her ‘Biles II’ vault – the hardest in women’s gymnastics – and it proved a good decision as she needed that extra buffer of points when she then made an uncharacteristic mistake on the uneven bars.
She was second behind Andrade after two rotations but then pulled off a difficulty-packed beam routine, fighting off gravity a couple of times to stay on the 10cm-wide apparatus, to score 14.566 and bring the crowd to their feet as she went back to the top of the standings.
Taking a lead of 0.166 into the final rotation on floor, Biles was last to perform and delivered a flawless demonstration of some of her best skills to post a total of 59.131 – a comfortable 1.199 ahead of Andrade, who could only applaud and enjoy what her rival had displayed, along with everyone else in the packed arena.
Great Britain’s Alice Kinsella came 12th after a marked improvement on her qualifying performance and compatriot Georgia-Mae Fenton was 18th.
By BBC Sports
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