Call it the redemption tour. Four of the women’s gymnasts who competed in Tokyo and earned silver in the team event are back in Paris and looking for gold. With the qualification round behind them, they’re one step closer to making that goal, but it’s been a shaky start.
Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, is back at her third Olympics and hoping to compete this time, after deciding to withdraw from the Tokyo Games following a case of the twisties. At the Bercy arena in Paris, Biles appeared to walk with a hitch in her step after her floor routine and seemed to be shaking off her leg, immediately raising speculation and concern about her ability to continue competing. During warmup for the next event, vault, she crawled beside the vault runway on all fours—smiling a bit but not helping journalists and gymnastics fans who were beside themselves on the internet about what was wrong.
“It’s not appropriate to say out loud what I was thinking,” Chellsie Memmel, the U.S. women’s team technical lead, said after seeing Biles on all fours. Biles’ coach Cécile Canqueteau-Landi downplayed it, saying “It’s Simone.”
Landi, said Biles felt some pain in her calf after her floor routine, so it was taped before she competed on vault. It was something that occurred “a couple of weeks ago, but it stopped and it was just a little bit again today,” she said. She said she wasn’t concerned about Biles’ ability to continue competing in the team, all-around, and potentially individual events next week. And that by the last of the four events on which she competed, Biles was “feeling better.”
Given what happened in Tokyo, when Biles abruptly pulled out of the team event after experiencing the twisties, a condition that made it dangerous for her to flip and tumble, all eyes were on the greatest gymnast of all time, so her odd gait prompted the online community to erupt in speculation and concern that wasn’t helped when she crawled along the vault runway. That’s because a lot is riding on the qualification. Making an Olympic gymnastics team is just the start. To actually compete in the first event—the team final, scheduled for July 30 in the Bercy arena in Paris—gymnasts have to move forward as one of the top eight teams during the qualification round, which took place on July 28.
In Paris, 79 gymnasts competed in three subdivisions throughout the day to move on to the team competition. The U.S. women—Biles, Jade Carey, Jordan Chiles, Sunisa Lee and Hezly Rivera—were assigned to the second subdivision with China in the morning and after a shaky start, got the job done and qualified. Because the U.S. women finished at the top of the two subdivisions, with only seven more teams to go, it was clear they would be among the top eight scoring squads to compete in the team final.
With three more subdivisions yet to go, the U.S. team qualified with a score of 172.296. Four gymnasts can compete from each country, and for the team event, only the eight highest-scoring teams, calculated by adding the three top scores from each country, will qualify. Gymnasts’ individual scores on each event from the qualification round also count—the top 24 scorers are eligible to compete in the all-around competition, and the top eight in the individual events.
Qualification is only the second time that gymnasts can compete in the actual competition space, in this case the Bercy arena, and use the equipment. Two days before the qualification, they participate in podium training, which gives them their first experience of competing in the arena. “That’s the first and only time they get to be in the arena [before competition starts]” says Aly Raisman, 2016 Olympic silver medalist in the all-around who competed with Simone Biles. “The lights are bright, They only get a short amount of time on the equipment. I don’t think people realize that every piece of equipment, even if it’s from the same brand, feels very different. The beam could be a little slippery or a little bit harder; the vault runway may not be as broken in, or the floor can be a little slipper like a carpet. So it really does have an impact and can make a very big difference. So I don’t think it’s right that [podium training] is the only time they get to be in the arena [before competition].”
The session started with the U.S. on beam, always a challenge as nerves, pressure, and expectations converge on a thin 4 in. piece of equipment raised 4 ft. off the floor. Chiles kicked off the session, and fought through several wobbles that betrayed her nerves. Those balance corrections continued throughout newcomer and first time Olympian Rivera’s routine, as well as that of reigning all-around champion Lee. Biles hopped on the beam and helped the team shake off those nerves with a solid routine that brought visible relief to the entire squad. The last time the gymnasts competed these programs was on the second day of Olympic Trials at the end of June, where all of them pushed through an uncharacteristic number of mistakes. With that legacy, starting on beam in the qualification round at the Olympics couldn’t have been ideal. “Starting on beam is definitely not easy,” Landi said. “But at the same time, when it’s over, you feel a lot better.” Biles certainly helped with that, but the pressure was truly on—the arena announcer hyped up the crowd in introducing her, and the audience responded with a deafening cheer, and then fell nearly silent as she mounted the beam and completed her routine. Normally, there is music and cheering for other gymnasts, but all of the other athletes had finished their rotation by the time Biles competed. All eyes were on her, following her every move.
After a small bit of relief following Biles impressive performance on beam, the tension continued to build for the U.S. women as Carey, the reigning Olympic gold medalist on floor, stepped out of bounds three times and had almost an entire point deducted from her score. Although her score was dropped from the overall team tally, it would have helped to boost the U.S.’s overall total had she not had the deductions. “We told her to remind herself that she is capable of doing it, that she’s got this and it’s okay,” said Landi. Carey rallied to perform two strong vaults in the next rotation, which will likely earn her a spot in the vault event final if the average score from her two vaults is among the top 8.
Once qualification is over, the gymnasts start with a fresh slate in the upcoming team, all-around, and individual event finals. The U.S. women will be competing next on July 30 to win the team gold that eluded them in Tokyo.
