Simone Biles has officially backed her ticket to a third Olympic Games. She will be joined in Paris this summer by Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera.
After two days of competition, the team was selected at the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials in Minneapolis on Sunday. It is the oldest and most decorated U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics team in history with four returning Tokyo Olympians.
Biles bagged a final score of 117.225 for the top spot. Suni Lee, the reigning Olympic all-around champion, was second at 111.675 with Tokyo 2020 team silver medallist Jordan Chiles rounding out the top three (111.425).
Biles, 27, will be the oldest female American gymnast to compete at the Olympics in 72 years.
When asked about becoming the oldest American woman gymnast since the 1950s to head to the Olympics, Biles laughed and said she knew she “wasn’t done” after Tokyo.
Biles said “being in a good mental spot” is what helped lead her back to another Olympics.
“Seeing my therapist every Thursday is kind of religious for me,” Biles told the NBC broadcast. “So, that’s why I am here today.”
“I wake up every day and choose to grind in the gym and come out here and perform for myself just to remind myself that I can still do it,” Biles told media afterward.
Alicia Sacramone Quinn, the strategic lead at USA Gymnastics, said the selection committee, which she heads, “had their eye” on Rivera and sees her as someone who could represent the U.S. at the 2028 Los Angeles Games.
“It was a hard decision,” she said of picking the team. “All the athletes did their jobs; they did what they needed to do.”
While there were some mistakes during Sunday’s trials, Quinn said, “better here than in Paris.”
Lee, the Tokyo Olympics all-around champion, won the uneven bars with a newly upgraded routine. She flawlessly connected daring release moves, including a Nabieva and a Bhardwaj.
Chiles’ dreams of returning to the Games were in jeopardy after she fell on the beam, but she sealed her fate by tumbling on the floor like a pro.
Carey, the reigning Olympic gold medalist on the floor, anchored the trials with a high-energy floor routine. She was second on the floor at trials, bested only by Biles.
The teammates are hoping for redemption in Paris, which means something different to each gymnast.
“We all have some redemption that we want so it’s really exciting for the four of us [Tokyo Olympians] to be back, with Hezley too,” Carey said.
“This is our redemption tour,” Biles said. “I feel like we all have more to give and our Tokyo performances weren’t the best. 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.”
During the week, three front-runners were injured in the lead-up to Friday’s competition, taking world champions Skye Blakely, Shilese Jones, and Kayla DiCello out of Olympic contention. Blakely and DiCello both ruptured Achilles tendons. The nature of Jones’ injury remains unknown.
