The women’s gymnastics qualifications on Sunday morning set the stage for some history-in-the-making for later in the week: After crushing their events on July 28, Simone Biles and Suni Lee are both slated to compete in the all-around finals on August 1.
Biles previously won the all-around title in 2016 in Rio, while Lee claimed the crown at the 2020 Tokyo Games. So Paris will mark the first time in history that two Olympic all-around champions from the same country will go head-to-head in the all-around final, according to USA Today. And, if either of them wins, it’ll be the first time a gymnast has claimed two Olympic all-around titles in almost 60 years.
The start list for team, all-around, and events competition at the Olympics is determined by how athletes and teams place in qualifications, which consist of five different subdivisions made up of a total of 96 athletes. After the third subdivision’s conclusion, Biles and Lee are sitting in the 1-2 spots. According to USA Gymnastics, that “all but guarantees” their spots in the all-around final.
It didn’t look like it was going to be smooth sailing from the beginning, though. It appeared Biles badly injured her calf during the floor exercise warm up at the Bercy Arena, but her coach, Cecile Landi told NBC Sports that, despite experiencing pain, Biles “never in her mind” considered pulling out of the competition. After that, she was able to complete the Yurchenko double pike vault (also known as the “Biles II”). And by the time Biles competed on bars, her final event, Landi said she felt better. She ended up scoring 59.566 in qualifying, a mark high enough to have won the last two world championships.
As the qualification neared its close on bars, Lee entered a battle with two-time US Olympian Jordan Chiles. The teammates were within a point of each other when they approached the final apparatus. Ultimately, Lee overtook Chiles by less than a tenth in the all-around standings. Still, Chiles’s score was good enough to have her in third place—behind only Biles and Lee—after the third subdivision. But even if her score remains in the top 24 after the two outstanding subdivisions are finished, she won’t be eligible to represent Team USA in the all-around finals due to the at-times controversial “two-per-country” rule.
By the end of the qualifying round, the US women scored 172.296. With two subdivisions left to go, Team USA is sitting more than five points ahead of Italy, China, and Japan—enough to qualify them for the team final, which they’ll enter as heavy favorites on July 30.
In vying for more medals on the world stage—and making some history in the process—Biles and Lee are also experiencing their own comebacks of sorts.
In 2021, Biles withdrew from most of the events in the Tokyo Games after experiencing the “twisties,” a phenomenon where your brain and body don’t quite connect, resulting in a loss of spatial awareness. After taking the time to recover physically and mentally, the 27-year-old returned to elite competition at the 2023 Gymnastics World Championships, winning her 20th gold medal while leading Team USA to a record-breaking seventh consecutive title at the meet.
Lee’s road to Paris was also uncertain. After claiming the all-around gold medal in Tokyo, Lee was diagnosed with a kidney disease that cut short her NCAA gymnastics season with Auburn University, where she had competed for two years. The condition kept her from training consistently for months, and, as she told SELF last fall, she and her team “didn’t know what was wrong with me.” At her lowest, Lee feared she wouldn’t be able to do gymnastics again. This year, though, she made a triumphant return with a runner-up finish at the US Olympic Trials to secure her place on Team USA.
The teammates will get a chance to prove themselves once again in an unprecedented match-up on the world stage later this week—with even more gymnastics (in the form of individual events finals) coming afterward.
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