It was another high-profile, high-flying night in Paris this evening, as Simone Biles and Suni Lee represented the United States in the women’s individual all-around final. Back at the Bercy Arena after the USA claimed team gold on Tuesday, the pair competed before a crowd including Steph Curry, Martha Stewart, Seth Rogen, Tony Hawk, Kendall Jenner, Tony Parker, Bill Gates, and Zinedine Zidane.
There, Biles’s overall score of 59.131 won her another gold medal—ratcheting her career tally up to six—while Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade captured the silver and Lee won the bronze. With today’s result, Biles became only the third woman in history to win two individual all-around golds at the Olympics, following the Soviet Union’s Larisa Latynina (in 1956 and 1960) and Czechoslovakia’s Vera Caslavska (in 1964 and 1968).
During the individual all-around, competitors wear their own leotards. Biles’s had a blue base with dazzling allover embellishments, while Lee’s had more of an ombré scheme, blending blue and red with an almost Art Deco–style filigree. Both looks were covered in crystals, befitting Team USA’s starry status.
As expected, Biles—the most decorated gymnast in history—performed her modified version of the Yurchenko double pike on vault, a move that no one had landed at the Olympic Games until Biles pulled it off in Paris’s qualifying rounds. Notably, she did not perform it during the team event; it’s a risky, gutsy skill, and Biles and company were said to want to preserve said risk for the individual competition. Well, that strategy paid off: Biles’s score of 15.766 quickly put her in the lead.
Next came the uneven bars. After Andrade’s routine, it was nice to see her and Biles exchange big smiles and a double fist bump. Biles received a steep deduction when it was her turn; she had too much swing going into her Pak Salto. After the second rotation, Andrade took the lead, with Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour in the silver-medal position. Biles was in third.
For their third rotation, Biles and Lee headed to the beam. Biles in particular had a great showing, overtaking the lead from Andrade going into their final discipline: the floor. The atmosphere was tense as the crowd waited for the Brazilian’s score—Andrade went last—to see where things stood.