Biles last won gold in the all-around at the 2016 Games in Rio
Simone Biles is going home with another gold medal after claiming the top spot on the podium in the women’s gymnastics all-around final on Thursday night, becoming the oldest all-around champion since 1952.
Biles, 27, stole the show early on with the Yurchenko double pike vault – a complex and difficult vault renamed after the American gymnast in 2023 after she became the first female to land it during international competition. She scored a high of 15.7666.
A slight slip-up on the uneven bars wasn’t enough to derail her campaign for gold, and a solid 14.566 on the balance beam put her back on top. Biles entered the final rotation with a narrow lead over Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade: a margin of just 0.166 points.
But Biles pulled off a near perfect floor exercise routine, scoring a high of 15.066. With her sixth gold medal and ninth overall medal, no other American gymnast has won more than Biles.
She is also now the oldest to win the women’s all-round since Maria Gorokhovskaya did so at the 1952 Helsinki Games at age 30.
Biles’ comeback follows a difficult journey at the 2020 Tokyo Games where she withdrew from the all-around final after suffering a bad case of the twisties. As she focused on her mental health, Team USA teammate Suni Lee was propelled to the top, winning gold in that event.
Lee clinched a bronze medal after securing a score of 13.535 on the floor exercise routine.
