Simone Biles leads U.S. women’s gymnastics team to Olympic gold, kicking off Paris ‘redemption tour’

“We had the most fun I’ve ever had at a meet,” Suni Lee said after the U.S. won gold. “It’s super special because we all knew how much we wanted it. We put in the work and did everything that we needed to do.”

Biles shared the team’s pre-competition ritual, which involved “bumping music, loud.”

“We were just having a good time while we were getting ready,” Biles said. “And we all knew what the job was once we got in here.”

The U.S. kicked off its night on the vault, where it built strong momentum heading into the uneven bars. Lee anchored the bars lineup with a gutsy routine that expertly juggled risk and reward, earning a 14.566.

A fall off the beam by Jordan Chiles sent a jolt of nerves through the U.S. team in the third rotation, but Lee got the team back on track with a confident exercise. Biles narrowly averted disaster on a side aerial, the easiest skill in her beam routine, but managed to stay on.

Team USA has several points of difficulty advantages, so Chiles’ missed routine had little impact on its gold medal chances. She more than redeemed herself on floor, where she served up high-flying acrobatics and magnetic stage presence in equal measure, tumbling to Beyoncé.

Reigning Olympic floor champion Jade Carey performed just one routine, a Cheng on vault that earned a 14.800. She sat out floor in the final after a disastrous qualifying routine, when she appeared to get lost in the air on her double tuck, doing only a full tuck and rolling backward, out of bounds.

Carey said in a post on X that she “hasn’t been feeling the best” in Paris and hadn’t eaten in several days before Sunday’s qualifying.

Hezly Rivera, 16, was the team’s only newcomer and didn’t compete in Tuesday’s final. She will still get a medal for her contributions to the team in the qualifying round.

Heading into the Paris Olympics, the U.S. women weren’t afraid to say it — they wanted that gold medal.

Biles called Paris a “redemption tour” for the Tokyo returners.

“I feel like we all have more to give and our Tokyo performances weren’t the best,” Biles said at the Olympic trials in Minneapolis. “We weren’t under the best circumstances, either, but I feel like we have a lot of weight on our shoulders to go out there and prove that we’re better athletes.”

Even Suni Lee, who came away from Tokyo with the all-around gold medal, was hungry to achieve Olympic glory with her teammates by her side.

“I think this time around, we’re so much more mature and know what we can do and what we can’t do,” Lee said.

Two Olympic all-around champions will go head to head in the all-around final for the first time. Biles and Lee contend for gold Thursday.