From our special correspondent in Paris – Just three years after having pulled out of the same event in the Tokyo Games due to a debilitating mental block, Simone Biles led the US team to a crushing victory in the women’s team artistic gymnastics on Tuesday at Paris's Bercy Arena.
Is Simone Biles getting sick of us? You couldn’t blame her. Sitting in the media room after having led the US gymnastic team to triumphant gold in the women’s artistic gymnastics final of the Paris Olympics, she sat through question after question from the eager press. How was her calf holding up? What was going through her mind at the start of her floor routine? Finally, it proved too much.
“Y’all are so nosy, geez! Just give me a break,” she said. “It’s always one thing after the next!” Then she shifted registers seamlessly, her tone once again clipped and courteous. “But you know, we’re doing pain management, so once we’re up there…”
It was funny, and it was true – we’re obsessed. At Paris’s Bercy Arena, a concrete ziggurat swathed in swatches of bright green grass in the capital’s east, the 15,000-strong crowd is largely there for just one person – Simone Biles. With her team’s victory tonight, she is now the most decorated gymnast in the world.
Throughout the evening, the camera clung to her like a second leotard, catching her mid-yawn, stalking her around the sidelines. Occasionally it darted high above the crowd, picking out the celebrities who’ve come to watch Biles in action. Serena Williams was in attendance, along with Michael Phelps, Bill Gates and Nicole Kidman – to name just a few.
Because tonight, there was more at stake for the screaming crowd than the joy of watching the best tower over the rest. Even before the all-star US team walked into the spotlights, a hundred MacBooks in the press stand were already tapping out the same word – redemption.
Three years ago in Tokyo, Biles had broken her winning streak by withdrawing from the finals, shaken by a debilitating mental block known as “the twisties'' that strikes some gymnasts at the literal height of their acrobatic routines. A sudden disconnect between mind and body, it momentarily transforms the athletes into just another blind object floating in space, not knowing where they are – or how they’ll land.
For many casual fans, it was a shocking glimpse into the mental and physical toll that these kinds of athletic feats can take on an athlete’s well-being – and a revelation that fundamentally changed the way many athletes talked about mental health in the years that followed.
The headline act isn’t here yet, but the show has already started. As the audience files gratefully into the air-conditioned embrace of Bercy Arena, the MC is already pumping the crowd for everything they’ve got.
A man sporting a wide-brimmed hat, waistcoat and walking stick is roaming the crowd, which shifts uneasily at the sight of his fearsomely waxed moustache. This, we are assured, is Pierre de Coubertin, the long-dead founder of the modern Olympic Games, who will be wandering the arena throughout the evening. If we see him, we are encouraged to expose him with a hearty “There is Pierre!” A quick test run is met by and large with embarassed silence. Well, it’s early.
There is something in the voice of even the most experienced MC that seems to catch when called on to introduce Phryge, the official Paris 2024 mascot. Phryge is modelled after the red caps worn during the French Revolution as an antique symbol of Liberty. He’s here tonight, a livid red triangle roughly the size of a man.
Like all mascots, Phryge is haunting. He is large enough to swallow a child whole, and something in his fixed stare suggests he might. You can buy a smaller version in hat form, logically enough, giving you the chance to walk around with your head buried between his legs, his feet lolling down either side of your face. In the joyous atmosphere that reigns across the city during the Games, this will not occasion comment.
But the warm-up’s over and the main act is here. The audience makes their allegiance clear from the second Simone Biles steps into the spotlights. De Coubertin’s doppelganger has competition – the camera rests in mute fascination on a number of kitted-out Uncle Sam’s in the crowd, completely at home in a sea of stars and stripes. Sporadic chants of “U-S-A! U-S-A!” will be lobbed back and forth across the arena throughout the night, and it’s not long before you start to feel a bit sorry for any gymnast who has to share the stage with Biles and her team.
Because that’s how this event works – the arena is divided into four sections, each built around a different apparatus allowing the gymnasts to showcase their acrobatic skills. The setup has a whiff of clockwork about it as the athletes rotate between their different routines, performing simultaneously to staggered applause from the four corners of the stadium. But there’s nothing clockwork about what they’re doing – the floor routine in particular combines contemporary dance with astonishing feats of agility as the sequined athletes catapult themselves across the central spring-loaded square.
The music that accompanies each of these routines ranges from ethereal vowels to electro-swing and the pounding synth and strings normally found in blockbuster film trailers. Some gymnasts embrace the local colour – Charles Aznavour’s “La bohème” is played in at least two different instrumental arrangements throughout the evening. Brazilian gymnast Flavia Saraiva has the crowd clapping along wildly to a can-can inspired performance straight out of the Moulin Rouge.
Although the evening’s outcome seems never in doubt, there are some surprises. Led by 17-year-old Manila Esposito, the Italians win their first silver in the event since the 1928 Games in Amsterdam. A powerful vault by Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade secures the bronze medal for her team.
But the Americans run the show, with Biles’ peerless performance backed up by strong showings from her teammates Jordan Chiles and Sunisa Lee.
There’s a moment of nervousness as Biles approaches the vault as the crowd’s collective imagination reaches back to Tokyo at the height of the pandemic. That day, the star gymnast lost her way in middair, exiting the competition shortly after.
"After I finished vault, I was relieved," Biles said on Tuesday. "I was like, 'Whew, because at least no flashbacks or anything.
"As soon as I landed vault, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I'm definitely – we're going to do this’."
We needn’t have worried. Biles seemed utterly at ease on the mat all through the night, ending the evening with a final floor routine that showcased two of her signature moves and cemented the US’s emphatic victory over all challengers. It’s the last routine of the night, and the stage is empty except for Simone Biles. According to her coach, Cécile Canqueteau-Landi, it was more than she could have hoped for.
"She wanted to rewrite her story in the end," she said. "I think she had to finish on a good note."
