The U.S. women’s gymnastics team had some precarious moments in Sunday’s qualifying round, but they will enter the team final as the overwhelming favorites for gold.
Simone Biles topped the all-around standings after the second of five subdivisions, flanked by Suni Lee, and is well-positioned to qualify for the floor, vault and beam apparatus finals.
For the first time, two Olympic all-around champions will go head to head in the all-around final when Biles and Lee go for gold on Thursday.
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Biles’ Paris prospects were suddenly in peril after she appeared to suffer a rough landing during floor warmups.
Her coach, Cecile Landi, said after the competition that Biles “felt a little pain in her calf,” but she never considered pulling out.
The apparent injury was also bothering Biles in training a couple of weeks ago, according to Landi, but had improved until today’s flare-up. She had her ankle wrapped by medical staff and intends to compete as planned for the rest of the Games.
The U.S. women had the daunting task of starting on the balance beam, where adrenaline can make staying on the 4-inch apparatus difficult. They did their jobs despite some hiccups, and Biles anchored the U.S. beam effort with one of the best routines of her career. She earned a huge 14.733 and will expect to join Lee in the beam finals.
Team USA’s toughest moment came in the second rotation when reigning Olympic floor champion Jade Carey fumbled her last tumbling pass. She appeared to get lost in the air on her double tuck, doing only a full tuck and rolling backward, out of bounds.
Carey earned a 10.633 on floor, which will prevent her from defending her title.
After the competition, Carey said in a post on X that she “hasn’t been feeling the best” while in Paris.
Her coach and father, Brian, was absent from Thursday’s podium training after USA Gymnastics said he was not feeling well. He returned for today’s qualification round.
On the next event, she got her redemption.
Carey scored a 14.433 average on vault with a Cheng and a double-twisting Yurchenko, which she is capable of upgrading to an Amanar (2.5 twists), in the final. Biles, who nailed her eponymous Yurchenko double pike, or “Biles II” vault, is expected to join Carey in pursuit of an Olympic vault medal.
“I think they rallied together,” Chellsie Memmel, the squad’s technical lead coach, said of Team USA’s resilience. “I think that says the strength of their team bond, just that they came together, they turned the page after floor and rallied around each other.”
Lee secured her all-around final berth on bars, where she is the reigning Olympic bronze medalist. She needed a 14.800 to beat Jordan Chiles, a tall order, but Lee clinched it by less than a tenth. She opted for a slightly safer routine, taking out a difficult connection and earning a 14.866. That secured her a presumptive spot in the bars final as well.
Like Gabby Douglas and Jordyn Wieber before her, Chiles found herself in the bittersweet position of being the third-best gymnast on the most dominant women’s gymnastics team in the world. Despite finishing third in the all-around standings after the second subdivision, Chiles will not advance to the all-around finals due to the two-gymnast-per-country rule.
She did not go down with out a fight, though.
Chiles excelled in all four events in her return to the Olympics — a massive improvement from a discouraging qualifying performance in Tokyo. Chiles is poised to join Biles, who is also her training mate, in the floor final. She won a silver medal in the event at the 2022 world championships.
Hezly Rivera, 16, is not only the youngest member of the U.S. gymnastics team, but also of the entire Team USA delegation. She battled some nerves in her Olympic debut on the balance beam and scored below her potential, but Rivera will be satisfied with the 13.900 she earned in the last rotation on bars.
The U.S. women’s gymnastics team will vie for a gold medal in the team final on Tuesday.
