Simone Biles had talked about the Paris Olympics being the “redemption tour” after a Tokyo Games where she pulled out of events and struggled with the “twisties”.
Having taken nearly two years out of the sport, she returned to Olympic competition on Sunday seemingly very much at the peak of her powers.
The USA men’s basketball team had talked about Biles being the hot ticket at the Games - as LeBron James put it: “She’s the best. It’s that simple.”
The hype and expectation was huge as she entered a packed Bercy Arena, Biles opting not to acknowledge the rapturous applause for her entrance.
Among those clapping from the stands were Tom Cruise, Ariana Grande and Snoop Dog as Biles took to the beam for her opening competition.
Her score of 14.733 comfortably put her through from qualifying into the final for that particular apparatus while her floor routine was similarly imperious.
There was a brief concern as she had her ankle strapped in the aftermath of that floor routine despite not appearing to have landed awkwardly but it seemed to be little more than precautionary.
She promptly took to the vault and proceeded to produce a vault nearly a full point better than anyone else at that point in the qualification competition.
The uneven bars, where she had threatened to try out a new, trademark move, was the only one where the most successful gymnast in history, with seven Olympic medals, looked ordinary.
It is still the early stages before the pressure and expectation ramps up during the course of the week but it was a far cry from the athlete who talked openly about her mental health struggles in Tokyo.
There as in Paris, she had been the stand-out favourite in virtually every event only to succumb to the “twisties” where she could not properly situate herself during her complex jumps. She still came away from Tokyo with a team silver and beam bronze.
In the lead-up to Paris she said it felt like “a little bit of a redemption tour” having come back to gymnastics for “the love of my sport”.
If the body and mind hold up, on the evidence of qualifying it will be worth it.
