Team USA gymnastics earns gold in Olympic women’s team final: Highlights

Few athletes have weathered more cataclysmic shifts in their sport than Biles. Eleven years after she won her first world championship, she reflected on how the sport has evolved throughout her career.

“They used to try to put us on in a box. And they were like if you weren’t like this, then you’re not going to be successful,” she said at a news conference after the meet.

“Now we can show off our personalities,” Biles added. “Really have fun but then also know that once we get on the floor, we’re going to put in work, and we’re going to show the results. We don’t have to be put in a box anymore.”

She credited the positive culture shift in the sport with lengthening gymnasts’ careers, including her own. At 27, she is the oldest U.S. Olympic gymnast in 72 years.

It’s tradition for the U.S. to give its gymnastics teams for the Olympics alliterative names.

In 2021, it was the “Fighting Four.” In 2016, it was the “Final Five.” And in 2012, it was the “Fierce Five.”

At a news conference after the U.S.’ triumphant return to the top of the podium, Aly Raisman, who led the Fierce Five and the Final Five to gold as the team captain, asked Biles what the 2024 team was called.

“Um … I’m not going to say it,” Biles said, looking at her teammates for help.

“Just abbreviate it!” They urged her.

After a brief sidebar and some whispers with her teammates, Biles revealed the name.

“F around … and find out,” Biles said, prompting the room to crack up.

NBC News has been keeping track of Biles’ record-breaking medal haul, but it’s the last thing on the GOAT’s mind.

“I don’t keep count; I don’t keep stats,” Biles said. “I just go out here and do what I’m supposed to, and I’m doing what I love and enjoying it.”

“Honestly, I would have had to Google that,” she said when asked about becoming the most decorated U.S. gymnast in Olympic history.

She added, “I don’t think I’ll truly understand the depth of it until I walk away from the sport.” Biles has yet to announce whether the Paris Games will be her last.

Biles’ Tokyo “twisties” first struck during the 2021 team final on vault. Today, Biles said, she started her day with therapy to hold any bad memories at bay.

“After I finished vault, I was relieved,” Biles said. “No flashbacks or anything, but I did feel a lot of relief. And as soon as I landed vault, I was like, ‘Oh, yeah, we’re definitely going to do this.'”

Today’s medal is Biles’ fifth Olympic gold, and it comes eight years after her last one at the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

“I think in 2016, we were destined to win gold. … We were a little young and naive. So it didn’t hit the way that it does now,” Biles said after today’s final. “Now that I’m much older, we have so much more experience, and we’re out here really having fun and enjoying what we’re doing, so I think it’s just different.”

Defending all-around gold medalist Suni Lee stuck the landing of her uneven bars routine, helping the U.S. return to the top of the medal podium once again.

Lee fell on her first skill on uneven bars during warmups, leaving spectators on the edges of their seats for the real thing.

She pulled it off without a hitch, flying high and sticking the landing.

Team USA is basking in the gold medal glory of winning the team event earlier today, followed by Italy and Brazil, who are also thrilled to have spots on the Olympic podium.

It’s their redemption tour, and Biles said she “couldn’t be more proud” of her fellow U.S. women’s gymnastics teammates.

The team, made up of Biles, Lee, Chiles, Carey and Rivera, just won gold in the team final.

Biles said ahead of the final, the team was “bumping music” but once they got to the Bercy Arena, “we all knew what the job was.”

“We’ve all put in the work, mentally and physically, so for it to show out there and for us to come together meant the world to all of us,” Biles told “TODAY” show host Hoda Kotb. “So, yeah, we did it.”

Chiles told Kotb she was ready to “just have a party” ahead of the event, adding that she was thinking, “I’m just going to go out there and do what I know.”

Chiles teared up as she finished her floor routine, her last of the day, and again on the podium while she was accepting her gold medal. “It was definitely an experience, and the tears were all joy,” she said.

Lee said their gold medal finish was “super exciting” and that it’s the “best time” she’s had with the Olympic team, pointing to the lack of a crowd at the Tokyo Games because of Covid.

Carey only hit the vault today, and she told Kotb before she exploded down the runway, she told herself “to be normal.”

“That was exactly what this team needed me to do,” she said. “Just do my normal vault.”

Rivera, the youngest on the team at 16, did not compete in the team final today, but still earned a medal as a team member who competed in qualifiers.

She said wearing a gold medal around her neck is “surreal.”

“This team has worked so hard and I’m so proud of how far we’ve come because we put in all the work,” she said.

Jordan Chiles fell off the balance beam as soon as she tried to mount it, eliciting a gasp from the packed and star-studded audience in Paris’ Bercy Arena.

“Keep an eye out on her ankles,” commentator and Olympic gymnastics medalist Laurie Hernandez told viewers. “You can always tell if a gymnast is nervous by the way her ankles shake while she’s either walking or on her tippy toes.”

But if Chiles’ fall had unnerved her, she didn’t show it, acing the rest of her routine and battling back to help USA win team gold.

British gymnast Becky Downie did not medal in the team final today, but she had an outstanding performance.

She only competed on two apparatuses: the balance beam and the uneven bars. Her uneven bars score of 14.933 was the highest of the entire competition.

These Olympics marks Downie’s return to the Games after an eight year absence. Her brother, Josh, died unexpectedly in 2021, just weeks before the Tokyo Olympic trials. Today, July 30, would have been his 27th birthday.

Andrade’s individual all-around score today was just 0.366 behind Biles. That’s a closer margin between the two stars than ever before.

They will go head-to-head for all-around gold in Thursday’s final.

Italy won silver and Brazil the bronze, historic feats for the respective countries.

Italy had not medaled in team gymnastics in 96 years. Brazil, despite being one of the favorites for a silver going into the competition, had never earned a team medal at the Olympic Games.

Despite some injuries — including a cut on Brazilian gymnast Flavia Saraiva’s face — the team’s bronze secured a historic first for it.

You didn’t see 16-year-old first-time Olympian Hezly Rivera on the mat today, but she will still boast a gold medal around her neck.

Even though Rivera was not tapped to perform any routines in the team final, she is still a part of the winning team and competed on bars and beam in the qualifying round which helped the team reach the finals to begin with.

She also sported her Team USA leotard today and warmed up with her teammates, ready to step in as an alternate in the event of an injury.

Biles has officially become the most decorated American gymnast in the history of the Olympic Games with eight medals.

She was previously tied with “Magnificent Seven” star Shannon Miller at seven Olympic medals.

It’s no surprise Biles hit her floor routine today, the last of 12 chances Team USA had to prove it was worthy of a gold medal.

It’ll head to the top of the podium with Biles’ score of 14.666.

Biles exited the mat looking relieved, having made it through the team final without a hitch, unlike in Tokyo when she was plagued by the twisties.

Her teammates held hands ahead of their final team routine of the day and welcomed Biles off the mat with hugs and cheers.

Up next for Biles: The individual all-around Thursday, then individual event finals for floor, vault and beam.

The women’s gymnastics team has done it again.

It is back on top with its fourth gold medal in the team event in the last 32 years of a medal-earning streak.

Save for one fall from Chiles on the beam, Team USA had a glorious showing on all four apparatuses today, heading into the individual finals strong.

Italy’s Angela Andreoli’s floor routine has guaranteed Italy its first gymnastics medal since 1928.

Andreoli needed a 12.836 on floor, and she exceeded those expectations with a 13.833.

If Biles does what she is capable of in the next routine, Team USA will win the gold medal.

After a rough beam routine, Chiles more than redeemed herself on floor. She tumbled to the music of her hero, Beyoncé.

“If she’s a queen, I’m a queen,” Chiles said of her idol.

Chiles stands out on floor for her magnetic stage presence. While other gymnasts play it safe to conserve energy, Chiles goes just as hard on her dance skills as she does on her complex acrobatics. She’ll be back on the competition floor to contend for a medal in Monday’s floor final.

Her score of 13.966 sets up Biles’ routine, which is coming up next and could clinch the gold.

Rebeca Andrade soared on vault, getting a great height and a near-perfect landing. Her giant score of 15.100 is the highest on vault so far. The next highest is Biles’ at 14.900.

Brazil’s Jade Barbosa stepped out of bounds and with her feet wide apart during her vault landing. This gave her an uncharacteristically low execution score of 8.466.

A third and final performance on floor for Lee earned her a score of 13.533 that will go toward the team’s total score.

Save for a few hops, Lee appeared to hit this routine to a tee.

Lee did what she had to today, proving she’s ready for the all-around final later this week. The only apparatus she did not compete on today was vault.

The Italians have not won a team gymnastics medal at the Olympics since 1928, but they are currently in podium position after some major errors from Brazil and China.

There’s only one apparatus between Team USA and a gold medal: Floor.

Lee will go first, followed by Chiles and then Biles.

The floor should be a victory lap for this team, ending a nearly perfect day strong.

Becky Downie performed an impressive uneven bars routine, sticking the landing. She earned a 14.933 — the highest score on the apparatus so far.

The easiest skill in Biles’ routine almost brought her off the 4-inch apparatus. On a side aerial, she landed on the tips of her toes and saved it like the all-star she is.

The U.S. will breathe a sigh of relief now that beam is behind them. Biles’ score of 14.366 will keep the team comfortably in first.

Just the floor exercise stands between Team USA and a gold medal.

Canada has never won a medal in any women’s gymnastics event.

Ellie Black’s landing on vault was epic, though Canada was in 7th place in the standings after Rotation 2.

In an echo of the opening ceremony, where “Moulin Rouge” dancers performed the iconic can-can dance, Brazil’s Flávia Saraiva tumbled to the classic French cabaret tune, earning a 13.533.

It was a near-perfect beam routine from Lee, who scored 14.600 — nearly six-tenths of a point higher than her qualifiers score.

She was clearly enthused after she landed, leaping for joy and cheering along with the crowd.

Lee opted for a more conservative mount, perhaps changing course after Chiles’ fall. Though she didn’t fall victim to the famed domino effect in gymnastics, when gymnasts typically fall after their teammates do, paving the way for a strong beam from Biles.

Italy’s Manila Esposito crushes her beam routine, earning a score of 13.966.

Italy is hoping to be in contention for a place on the podium — a feat the country has not accomplished since 1928.

The beam rotation is off to a rocky start for the U.S. as Chiles came off on her mount. That will be a full point deduction.

Team USA has several points of difficulty advantage, so it won’t affect its gold medal chances.

The U.S. women’s gymnastics team has medaled at every Olympics since the 1992 Barcelona Games, and won gold three times (1996, 2012, 2016).

The team will aim to extend that streak today and add a fourth gold to its collection.

Two rotations down, two to go and Team USA is in a comfortable first place. Italy trails the U.S. by three points in second place, followed by China in third.

Biles’ coaches, Cecile and Laurent Landi, are originally from France and now coach the superstar at the Biles’ family gym in Spring, Texas.

Cecile Landi, who is also the Olympic team head coach, is a former Olympic gymnast herself, having represented France at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Their daughter, Juliette Landi, represented France in synchronized diving earlier in these Games, so the Landis’ know what it’s like to sit in the stands as nervous parents, too.

Beam, the trickiest event, is up next for the Team USA ladies. They’re hoping they can make it through the third rotation without any falls.

Chiles is up first, followed by Lee and then Biles.

Lee and Biles will both compete in the individual beam final, as well.

In the theater world, they say a bad dress rehearsal means a good show.

That was the case for Lee, who fell off the bars in warmups, but stayed on the equipment when it counted.

She appeared to be slightly off at the top of the routine and appeared to hit her feet on the mat, which could result in a half-point deduction if the judges saw it. It’s still a superb number for Lee, who earned a 14.566 in her signature event.

Tokyo Olympics all-around champion Lee is dominating at the 2024 Paris Games, despite her recent health issues, including an incurable kidney disease.

Lee’s return for her second Olympic Games was far from guaranteed as she battled two types of kidney disease over the past year or so.

Speaking to the “TODAY” show’s Hoda Kotb in an  exclusive interview that aired July 1, Lee said “it feels absolutely insane” to have made the team.

“There were so many times where I thought about quitting and just giving up because I was so sick, and it was just so hard to stay motivated, watching everybody get better, and I’m just like I can’t even get back into the gym and constantly doubting myself,” she recalled.

Read the full story here.

Gymnastics history books already have Biles’ name written all over them, but she could join yet another echelon of the sport’s royalty by having a skill named after her on every event.

She is poised to debut an original skill in Paris, a Weiler 1.5 on bars, but did not do it today. Biles will have one more chance to do it in Thursday’s all-around final.

Another stellar routine from Biles, who won’t compete in the individual bars final but who helped her team get one step closer to the gold with that performance.

She scored 14.400, slightly lower than her qualifiers score.

The crowd at the women’s gymnastics team final is full of big stars. Natalie Portman, Serena Williams, Nadia Comăneci, Michael Phelps, Spike Lee and Nicole Kidnman were all shown cheering from the stands.

In the lead-up to Paris, Chiles has hyped herself up with plenty of Beyoncé music and the mantra that she is “that girl.”

She lived up to that title on bars, doing one of the best bar routines of her career in the lead-off position for USA. She posted a 14.366, which was a tenth higher than her qualifying score.

Brazil’s Júlia Soares fell on beam halfway through her routine. She gets a disheartening 12.400 as a result.

Soares will have a shot at redemption during apparatus finals, where she qualified for beam in eighth place.

But for now, Brazil’s team is facing pressure to come back as a contender after the slip.

Bars is up next for Team USA.

Jordan Chiles will compete first, followed by Biles, then Suni Lee.

Two-time Olympic gymnast Aly Raisman is in Paris to support Team USA.

Raisman posted a photo yesterday from the stands along with her parents, who went viral in 2021 and 2016 for their stressed reactions as Raisman executed her routines.

This time around, Raisman claims, they are “a lot more relaxed.”

Rebeca Andrade anchored Brazil on bars, earning a huge 14.533. She would have earned a spot in the bars final with that routine if she had done it in qualification, but she and Biles are currently the alternates for that apparatus final.

Andrade closed out a strong rotation for a team eyeing its first Olympic team medal.

The Paris Olympics is expected to belong to Simone Biles.

But if there’s one person who could spoil the party for the American gymnast, it’s Brazilian phenom Rebeca Andrade.

Andrade, 25, became a household name in Brazil after she  won two medals at the Tokyo Olympic Games.

Andrade and Biles will face off for gold in the today’s team final, as well as the all-around, vault, beam and floor finals. While they have competed against each other before, Paris is set to be the first Olympic showdown with both of them at peak form.

Read the full story here.

Flávia Saraiva, one of Team Brazil’s stars, suffered a scary fall from the uneven bars in warmups. She appears to have a black eye after seeking medical attention, but posted a strong 13.666 on bars.

Three years ago, in Tokyo, Biles started to see troubles with the twisties on the vault during the team final.

Today, there was no evidence of the twisties and she performed a Cheng vault, one of the hardest of the night, earning a score of 14.900. It was a different vault than she attempted in Tokyo, an Amanar.

She had a huge smile on her face when she landed, closing out the first rotation for her team.

Biles will perform on vault again in both the individual all-around final and the individual vault final.

In her only event of the night, Carey did a powerful Cheng vault, earning a 14.800.

She can rest easy on the sidelines for the rest of the competition and will contend for a vault medal in the apparatus finals Saturday.

Jordan Chiles kicked off the team final strong!

Chiles exploded on a strong starting vault, landing with just a small hop, that earned a score of 14.400, higher than she earned in qualifiers Sunday.

Competition in Bercy Arena has begun with Team USA on vault.

Today’s competition, the team final, is the same Olympic competition Biles withdrew from in Tokyo.

Team USA will start on vault, which is where the trouble started for Biles three years ago.

She appears to be twisting just fine in Paris.

While the lowest score on each event could be dropped during qualifying, all scores count in the team final.

Three gymnasts from each country will compete on each apparatus.

After qualifiers over the weekend, the top 8 teams advanced to the team final.

The U.S. has a five-point lead over second-place Italy heading into the final today. Here is where everyone stands:

1. United States
2. Italy
3. China
4. Brazil
5. Japan
6. Canada
7. Britain
8. Romania

After winning the team silver medal in Tokyo, the U.S. women aren’t afraid to say it — they want that gold medal.

Biles called the Paris Olympics 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 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, is hungry to top the Olympic podium with her teammates.

“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.

Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles will do all four events in today’s final. Suni Lee will compete on the uneven bars, balance beam and floor.

Jade Carey will only vault after a disastrous floor routine in qualifying. Hezly Rivera will be on stand by, ready to step in if anything goes wrong.

Biles’ Paris prospects seemed suddenly in peril Sunday after she appeared to suffer a rough landing during floor warmups in the qualifying round.

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 was improving until Sunday’s flare-up. Biles is set to compete on all four apparatuses, so any pain she is feeling isn’t preventing her from going all out in Paris.

Stephen Nedoroscik is not only known for his pommel horse skills, but also for his ear tug. The reason is a special one, as it was always a signal to his “dziadziu,” which is grandfather in Polish.

Nedoroscik is named after his grandpa, Stephen John Nedoroscik, who died last year at age 94.

“I’ve kept the tradition up and now it always means, ‘Hey,’ to everyone that I love,” he explained in a video showing behind the scenes footage.

This has been an ongoing tradition for Nedoroscik since he was in college at Penn State. When he was on TV, he said he’d tug his ear to say hi to his grandfather who was watching at home.

After winning a bronze on the team event yesterday, the U.S. men’s gymnastics team had some words of encouragement for the women, who will compete in the team final in just under 30 minutes.

“Go out there and kill it,” Brody Malone said. “Y’all know what to do.”

Designing the Olympic leotards for the Paris Games is a medal-worthy feat. Jeanne Diaz, the design director at GK Elite, the official leotard manufacturer for the U.S. Olympic team, began working on the Paris Olympics leotards more than two years ago.

“We really connected the designs to Paris as the host city,” Diaz said. “Paris is known to be the fashion capital of the world, and we know all eyes are on Team USA, so we made sure that we had that cohesion of fashion throughout but also that the whole collection was unmistakably Team USA.”

The “Go for Glory” design, which the U.S. women are expected to wear in today’s final, aims to capture the “radiant moment when an athlete, draped in the flag, transcends to become a symbol of triumph.”

It is adorned with 9,929 meticulously placed crystals cut into diamond shapes, weighing nearly a pound.

Read the full story here.

When Dominique Dawes competed in the Olympic trials for the 1992 Barcelona Games, she was the first Black gymnast to ever qualify.

“To see now, 32 years later, women of color dominating the sport of gymnastics definitely gives me reason to at least know that the sport is becoming a little bit more inclusive,” Dawes said in an interview with NBC News.

Eighty percent of the U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team competing in Paris are women of color, making it the most racially diverse in the team’s history.

The most dominant gymnast in the history of the sport is powered by chocolate croissants. Biles posted a video on TikTok praising the Olympic host city’s famed pastries after the qualifying round on Sunday.

Her coach, Cecile Landi, said in an Instagram story Tuesday that “freshly baked pain au chocolat were delivered to Simone this morning,” so Biles will have plenty of energy for the many twists and flips ahead of her.

Jonathan Owens, the Chicago Bears safety perhaps better known as “Simone Biles’ Husband,” will be in Paris cheering her on today.

After the Olympic trials in June, Biles told reporters that the Bears were granting Owens some time off from training camp to head to the Games.

“It’s super exciting that we get to be in each other’s elements and supporting each other’s dreams and goals,” Biles said at the time. “It’s these memories that we make that we’ll never get back, so any time we can show up for one another and support, we just get super excited because our schedules don’t align that much so whenever it does, it’s really important for both of us to show up and support.”

Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, the Russian gymnasts, who are the reigning Olympic champions, are banned from competing in the Paris Olympics.

Team USA’s primary competition will instead come from Brazil, China and Italy.

The internet is ablaze with love for and memes of “Pommel Horse Guy,” or Stephen Nederoscik, who anchored the U.S. men’s team gymnastic final with a nearly perfect routine yesterday that earned a high score — and a U.S. spot on the podium for the first time in 16 years.

New fans were quick to point out Nederoscik’s Clark Kent-like glasses and poked fun at the “nap” he took in the lead-up to his shining moment.

Since he performs on only one apparatus, and the U.S. was scheduled to compete on pommel horse as the last of six rotations, Nederoscik had a lot of time to chill before he was up.

His niche skill and nerdy appearance garnered a quick fanbase obsessed with the fact that Nederoscik was likely the missing piece to a long-sought team medal for the U.S. men.

After a dominant performance at the qualifying rounds, the women’s gymnastics team is heading into the team final as the heavy favorite. NBC’s Kaylee Hartung reports for “TODAY.”

After earning their much-deserved and long-awaited bronze medal yesterday, the U.S. men’s team has a few more shots at adding to their collection of hardware.

Tomorrow, Frederick Richard and Paul Juda will compete in the individual all-around final. They finished 10th and 13th respectively at qualifiers.

While neither is at the top of the pack, after an explosive showing in the team final yesterday, Richard could contend for a spot on the podium.

One-hit-wonder Stephen Nedoroscik will show what he’s made of at the pommel horse final on Aug. 3. He placed second in the qualifiers and is expected to take home a medal for Team USA.

Olympic dreams came true for Hezly Rivera, 16, before she even got her driver’s license. She was selected to join an Olympics team laden with medals and international star power, but being on a stacked squad like the U.S. team has its downsides, too.

Rivera did not make the cut for the team final lineup, where no scores can be dropped. Although she won’t compete today, she is still on the competition floor as a backup, in case of disaster, and to cheer on her teammates.

If the team makes the podium, Rivera will also receive a medal for her effort toward the team score in Sunday’s qualifying round.

If the U.S. women win a medal today, Simone Biles will officially become the most decorated American gymnast in the history of the Olympic Games.

She is currently tied with “Magnificent Seven” star Shannon Miller at seven Olympic medals. A podium finish today would bring her Olympic medal collection to eight.

Biles is already the most decorated gymnast in history from any country if you include world championship medals in the tally. She currently has 37 world and Olympic medals combined.

Hezly Rivera, 16, can become the youngest gymnast from any country to win Olympic gold since American Kyla Ross in 2012.

Rivera is not in the team’s final lineup but competed in prelims and will win a medal if the team finishes top three.

Simone Biles, 27, would be the oldest woman from any country to win Olympic gymnastics gold since 1964, according to the OlyMADMen, which is the database used by the International Olympic Committee.

Aly Raisman is currently the oldest U.S. female gymnast to ever win Olympic gold, when she was 22 in 2016. 

When  U.S. Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles was 17, one of her former coaches called her “double head,” because, as she recalled, her “hair was too big.” Someone also questioned whether she was her mother’s daughter because of her darker skin.

Those common occurrences — and an overall lack of diversity within amateur gymnastics — caused Chiles to contemplate leaving the sport she loved.  

“I wanted to be done, because I didn’t think … the sport wanted me,” Chiles said on  NBC’s “My New Favorite Olympian” podcast. “I didn’t think people around me wanted to see this beautiful Black girl in a [leotard] anymore.”

But Chiles chose to persevere. Instead of quitting, she continued embracing her true self and embarked on a journey of empowering women of color.

Read the full story here.

The “Perfect 10” still exists in gymnastics, but it is no longer the only metric used to calculate a score. Today’s gymnasts receive scores in two separate categories for each routine: difficulty and execution. The difficulty score is open-ended, while execution is scored out of a 10.00.

The difficulty and execution scores are combined to produce the final number. To optimize their scores, gymnasts perform the most difficult routines they can while minimizing execution deductions.

Learn more about what Olympic judges look for in our gymnastics scoring 101 guide.

You won’t see host country France on the mat today.

After Sunday’s qualifying round, the French team did not make the cut for the top eight teams that advanced to today’s team final. France placed 11th out of 12 teams.

Team USA, in first place after Sunday, will face off against Italy, China, Brazil, Japan, Canada, Great Britain and Romania in a quest to return to the top of the podium today.

The women’s team final kicks off at 12:15 p.m. ET. Catch all the action on NBC and Peacock.