It’s a special thing when everyone witnessing a grand moment recognizes the gravity of an impending result in real time — most of all the athlete or athletes caught in the white-hot center of the competition as its boiling to a climax. Among sports’ most alluring powers, perhaps its most irresistible is its function to provide major moments for major accomplishments that forever change the stature and reputation of our sporting greats.
These rare occurrences can redefine the parameters of a sport, then serve as a standard for all who come after. It’s how we build our stories, market our games and pay proper homage to our legends. Every so often when these opportunities materialize, they double as the deciders and separators that upgrade sporting greats to all-time icons.
Simone Biles, for official purposes, crossed that threshold for good Thursday.
After trailing through the first two rotations on vault and uneven bars in the individual all-around at Bercy Arena, Biles came back and beat Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade by accumulating a 59.131 score for her performances on balance beam and floor exercise. Thanks to a typically outstanding and unique floor display, Biles cleared Andrade’s silver-winning performance by a cozy 1.199 points.
It forever certified Biles’ status as one of the most dominant athletes in American history.
Fellow Team USA gymnast Suni Lee, who won individual all-around gold in Tokyo three years ago, had a beautifully executed floor exercise of her own to boost up her to the bronze. For her part, Lee was the first all-around champion to medal in consecutive Games since Romania’s Nadia Comăneci in 1976 and 1980. That’s an amazing achievement unto itself. Biles, Andrade and Lee all overcame injuries and afflictions in recent years to get back to this moment. A testament to their toughness, resolve and badassery.
For Biles, the win takes on a profound reward that will stay with her forever. In taking a second all-around gold in these Games (the first coming Tuesday in team competition) she’s promoted once and for all in place among our greatest athletes. Biles is the first gymnast in history to win gold in all-around eight years apart. She’s the first two-time individual all-around champion since Věra Čáslavská in 1968 (Soviet Union). At 27, she’s the oldest all-around Olympic gold medalist in 72 years (Soviet Union’s Mariya Gorokhovskaya, who was 30 in 1952).
Biles increased her Olympic haul to nine medals, six of them gold — both American gymnastics records. She has been recognized as the GOAT of her sport for years, but now she has the accomplishments in two Olympics, eight years apart, that will transcend her everlasting prominence in gymnastics. Tuesday was the redemption arc, helping Team USA to all-around team gold after exiting from the Tokyo Games because of the twisties.
Thursday was less redemption than a full-on return to individual dominance. Biles never truly left that domain in the world of gymnastics, but she still needed to actually come back and do it on the Olympic stage to elevate her reputation to all-time status.
And how she got there Thursday is worth a recall. She won Thursday after inducing some authentic drama early on. Biles was third midway through the competition, a spot she rarely finds herself in, before blasting back into first place and boosting away with gold thanks to having her two best events (beam and floor) on the back end of the competition.
At the break, Biles was -0.267 points behind Andrade. She approached beam — the first gymnast on it — and as she hopped on, you could feel the tension and the tightness taking over Bercy Arena through the TV.
“She was nervous,” NBC commentator and former gold medal Olympian Laurie Hernandez said after Biles finished on beam.
Even though it wasn’t Biles at her very best, it was still impressive, which is to say: elite. The dismount landed, and Biles beamed a smile. She pulled a 14.566 and it bumped her to first after all others finished the same event. Biles led by .166 points after the third rotation. The last, floor routine, being Biles’ best, set up the inevitable. She popped a 15.066 score and etched her name ever deeper into history, in a place she might not ever be approached.
In case you’d lost count: Biles still hasn’t lost an all-around meet she’s entered since 2013: 38 straight victories. In a sport as difficult, dangerous and sometimes mercurial as gymnastics, it’s a streak that probably won’t ever be broken. It’s hard to even fathom how she’s done this, with so many reasons — gravity arguably the biggest — to simply not win 38 straight all-around competitions.
And how lucky are we to still have more to come with this superstar? This story is going to get bigger this weekend. On Saturday, barring the unthinkable, Biles is going to become the rare gymnast to reach double-digit medal inventory. She still has three individual events to compete in this weekend, with a chance at gold in each: vault, beam and floor exercise.
To watch this absolute legend do what she does best — flying about the floor, twisting and flipping and curling in the air, wowing every with every other move, as if she’d invented them; some of them, in fact, she did — it’s an act of witness unlike anything else in sports. Biles’ competitive spirit and athletic brilliance has elevated gymnastics and captured the attention of people around the world. Never has someone so small loomed so large; it’s part of her power and an enduring image. She is singular.
Thursday’s all-around gold once more puts her atop the American sports landscape, but further than that, it reinforces her place in all-time lore when we discuss the very best American athletes ever.
So we can and should and will put her name alongside the likes of Michael Phelps and Carl Lewis. Katie Ledecky, too. On that note, Ledecky’s record-setting 13th Olympic medal came in the women’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay on Thursday. It was a silver, and now Ledecky has the most medals of any American female Olympian, second all-time to Phelps’ mind-boggling 28. How appropriate/symbolic that Ledecky and Biles crossed into a new echelon within hours and miles of each other — and on the same day — at these Games.
For Biles, her name and popularity now permanently bursts out beyond the Olympic realm. She’s holding company with Serena Williams and Martina Navratilova. Michael Jordan and LeBron James. Tom Brady and Joe Montana. Babe Ruth and Willie Mays. Thursday was about more than one more gold to hang at home. It vaulted Biles into the most rarified company of American sports royalty — and affirmed her status as a global sports immortal — both now and for the ages.
