That is a part of Slate’s 2024 Olympics protection. Learn extra right here. 

Nicely my associates, I mentioned it would occur, and for a couple of minutes there throughout the ladies’s all-around gymnastics ultimate in Paris’ Bercy Area, I believed it truly would: Simone Biles, the best gymnast the game has ever seen, was briefly behind. I mentioned it, and I meant it: Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade was inside Biles’ margin of error! However after a contest stuffed with extra twists and turns than—wait, what’s a sport that options many literal twists and turns? I can’t consider one—the all-around podium had Biles on the prime, persevering with her run as probably the most embellished American Olympic gymnast of all time.

With this gold, at 27 Biles additionally turns into—properly, let’s be well mannered: the feminine particular person with the, er, quantity highest in age to have gained a gymnastics all-around gold since Maria Gorokhovskaya did it in 1952 at 30, doing what, I’m sorry, now appear like playground tips as a result of my, has the game advanced! Biles’ triumph is just not some type of freak incidence, by the way in which; elite gymnastics careers now final far longer than they as soon as did. Additionally, 27 is simply “previous” if you happen to’re Andrew Tate.

The meet began off with a large Biles benefit. Though Andrade threw an impressive Cheng—she is, I’m going to say it, the perfect to ever do that exact vault—the Cheng’s problem worth of 5.6 paled compared to you-know-what: That’s proper! The Biles 2, or Yurchenko double pike (problem: 6.4), the ability Biles has mentioned makes her scared she would possibly die actually each time she does it. After she landed this monster on her ft with just one sizeable step again—do not come for me with “however her landings!”; this vault under-rotated may break each of her legs—the meet was hers to lose. After which she went to the accursed uneven bars and got here as near dropping it as I’ve ever seen her do.

Biles entered the second rotation with a lead of greater than half some extent—which she promptly chucked straight into the garbaggio after pulling by way of a very heroic save, when her high-to-low-bar transition went awry. It was a testomony to her nerves, expertise, and teeny tiny peak that this error didn’t put her onto the mat; as a substitute, she swung by way of on the low bar with bent knees (one massive deduction) after which needed to insert corrective expertise (one other whopper). In the long run, she someway wrangled a decent 13.733 (a fall routine could be someplace within the 12s), however her margin of error shrank to a unfavourable quantity. With Andrade’s bar routine coming in at 14.666, this erased Biles’ lead, after which some. In truth, at one level, after Algeria’s magnificent bar employee Kaylia Nemour pulled a 15.533 on her signature occasion, Biles stood, horror of horrors, in third place. (This was as a result of Nemour’s a bar prodigy, and her different occasions rating within the human vary—however that didn’t cease a whole lot of chatter!)  

In the meantime! The gold race wasn’t the one factor that made me think about speaking to my physician about no matter hypertension drug was marketed between occasions. For between Nemour and Italy’s wonder-twin Alice D’Amato, our very personal Suni Lee, who wasn’t even speculated to be right here right now, was discovering herself in a lifeless warmth for the bronze after a stable (however comparatively small) vault and a shocking bar set. (A yr in the past, Lee was identified with two separate continual kidney illnesses, and advised she would possibly by no means do gymnastics once more.)

What higher option to assuage the nerves of a world collectively about to barf than everybody’s favourite occasion, the very chill stability beam? (At the least it wasn’t pommels!) Nonetheless, the second I noticed Biles ace the mount that’s been dogging her just lately, I knew she’d be OK. Her solely deductions of observe, in actual fact, had been a small wobble after the facet aerial that briefly derailed her in workforce finals, and an totally heroic muscle-through save on her accursed wolf flip, which regular folks most likely didn’t discover as a result of wolf turns are humorous wanting even when carried out proper.

So now the meet was Biles’ to lose once more. Would Andrade present an help? She wouldn’t! Her beam routine, although nice, was not as tough and scored a 14.133 to Biles 14.566. Concurrently, would any of the bronze-medal contenders offer Lee any tenths to spare? No they’d not; it was Lee who provided quite a few small corrections and points all through her beam routine.

At this level my blood had returned to a human stage of strain, as a result of I knew that whereas Biles’ fluke on bars had made issues attention-grabbing, this meet was now squarely within the GOAT’s bailiwick. The final occasion was the ground train, on which no gymnast has ever come near her problem. And whereas it’s gymnastics, so something can occur—minutes earlier than, Brazil’s Flavia Saraiva had bounced so onerous out of a double tuck that she actually stomach flopped out of bounds!—Biles may have, ultimately, counted an out-of-bounds on all 4 tumbling passes and nonetheless walked away with the gold. (Biles is so good on ground—her fundamentals so flawless, her amplitude unparalleled, and her in-air execution often good—that overdoing her tumbling is often the one notable mistake she makes.)

After Tokyo I take nothing without any consideration, and probably like lots of you, I discovered this meet practically unimaginable to observe. As a lot as I do know she doesn’t want a single medal extra to cement her standing as the best to ever do it, I additionally know that Biles wouldn’t have come again to those Olympics if she didn’t need to win them. Nonetheless, as a lot as I needed this for her—the redemption she has been after for 3 years—I additionally understood that it was precisely this exact expectation from the world that broke her earlier than. So, though Biles has not scored beneath a 14 on ground at any time throughout the 2024 quadrennial—and though, after Andrade posted a beautiful however not-as-difficult ground routine (alas, no secret new tumbling, which she had been rumored to be debuting in Paris), the American wanted however a 13.868 to win. It was crucial that on behalf of the whole world that I calmed my hormones.

Nicely, possibly I did and possibly I didn’t! As a result of I could or might not have brought about a minor commotion in my home when Biles completely drilled her ground routine, obliterating any scintilla of hater doubt about whether or not she was well worth the hype. When all was flipped and twisted on the finish of the ground rotation, not solely had Biles landed on the prime of the rostrum, however with some minor assists from D’Amato and Nemour on ground, Lee clawed her manner again up there too. (Lee wanted to do the literal greatest ground routine she had ever carried out since Tokyo, and he or she did—in, I ought to point out, her literal first worldwide competitors since Tokyo.)

With Biles and Lee bookending Andrade (all three ladies’s all-around medalists are returning to this podium, for the primary time in historical past!), this may not have been the rostrum that some curmudgeonly worldwide followers had been hoping for—extra people within the deep “gymternet” had been rooting for a “Simone flop” than I’ll ever dignify in print once more—nevertheless it was the rostrum that every of those phenomenal athletes earned. There may be additionally no imaginary time journey math wanted to show Biles’ greatness; Andrade circa 2024 was, and stays, the one actual all-around competitors she has had in additional than a decade. And whereas Andrade was magnificent and spent the whole meet inside Biles’ margin of error, ultimately the GOAT’s errors remained marginal sufficient to maintain her on prime.

This Olympics has gone phenomenally properly for the U.S. gymnastics workforce, with solely occasion finals now left. Now, everybody (together with, maybe, me?) will get an entire total day to relaxation, earlier than every exceptional equipment turns into the focal point within the occasion finals. Mentioned occasion finals often is the final time we ever see Biles or Andrade face off, or probably—sniff—compete in any respect. So let’s all be thankful for another sensible weekend—as we hope our blood strain holds out.