PARIS — Simone Biles stood to the right, a silver medalist. Jordan Chiles stood to the left, a bronze winner.
In the middle was Rebeca Andrade, the Brazilian superstar who had seemingly taken on Team USA all by herself at these Olympics and this time, in this event, had triumphed. She’d finally won gold here, edging Biles out by just 0.033 points to score an upset in the floor competition.
Biles could have been upset. A lot of athletes would be. She came expecting to win an eighth all-time gold in what was likely her Olympic finale, going out on top in front of a packed crowd eager to celebrate her greatness.
Instead, soreness in her left calf flared up again during a warm-up pass. Her back may have tightened. Doctors checked her out, but at age 27 — the oldest American female gymnast since the 1950s — and Day 8 of an active competition, it was all just a little too much.
She stepped out of bounds twice. She didn’t execute to her normal standards. She got beat. Fair and square, she got beat by a great gymnast.
Yet so often, perhaps too often, these Olympic competitions break down to someone losing gold, not winning silver. The drive for the top of the podium is all-consuming. The need for glory — all the glory — becomes the standard.
Yet Simone Biles saw it completely differently. And so for all the things she has done for gymnastics in her career — push the envelope of difficulty, open up about mental health, fight for safety of the athletes from abusive doctors and coaches — here was one more lesson for the world.
Sportsmanship, courtesy of Simone and Jordan. They cheered for Andrade. They hugged Andrade. They celebrated with Andrade. Then they all stood on that podium.
“Should we bow to her?” Chiles asked Biles.
“Absolutely,” Biles answered back.
And so they did.
No hard feelings. No pouting. No regrets.
Just respect.
“Rebeca is so amazing,” Biles said. “She’s queen. … It was just the right thing to do.”
There couldn’t have been a better way to end this gymnastics competition, even better than Biles soaring out of the Olympics with another golden tumbling run. If mutual admiration and honest competition is what the sport is supposed to be about, then here it was being just that.
“She’s an icon, a legend herself,” Chiles said of Andrade. “I feel like being recognized is what everybody should do [especially] somebody who has put in the work, put in the dedication. … Not only has she given Simone her flowers [through the years] but a lot of us on the United States [team] our flowers as well.
“So giving it back is what makes it so beautiful,” Chiles said. “I felt like it was needed.”
Gymnastics can be a lonely sport. Hours and hours, days and days, years and years of often individual training, individual grind. It is a sport where everything comes down to the work that is put in. The big competitions are few and far between — sometimes just four to six times a year. The world seemingly only pays attention once every four years.
It’s why geographic borders only matter so much. The bond is in the shared sacrifice and setbacks. Biles and Chiles see Andrade as one of them, especially as women of color in a sport where they weren’t always prevalent.
“For us it was an all-Black podium,” Biles said. “So that was super exciting.”
This was also about competitors respecting each other. Andrade had been brilliant the last few years. A gold and a silver in Tokyo 2021; two silvers and a bronze heading into Friday here in Paris.
She finished all-around runner-up to American Suni Lee in Tokyo and all-around runner-up to Biles last week as well as at the 2023 World Championships. Always close, always pushing, but rarely on top.
Now she was and the American girls wanted to show their appreciation for the fight.
“I love Rebeca,” Biles said. “She is absolutely amazing. I can’t say enough good things about her. She keeps me on [my] toes. She makes me want to perform better.”
So even if the floor final didn’t go as Biles planned — namely winning, if not dominating — then so what? She has 11 Olympic medals, tied for second-most all-time by a female gymnast. She has seven golds, also tied for second all-time.
What was she going to do, pout and stomp and act dismissive of a silver medal? Or get too upset about falling off the beam earlier in the day and missing the podium altogether?
“It is day eight,” her coach, Cecil Landi, said. “She’s a little tired, emotionally and physically it’s been a long week. She made mistakes on floor. But you make mistakes and you are still a silver medalist? That’s pretty cool.”
Biles knew that all along.
“I have accomplished way more than my wildest dreams, not just at this Olympics but in this sport,” Biles said. “So I can’t be mad at my performances. A couple years ago I didn’t think I would be back here at these Olympic Games.
“Competing and walking away with four medals?” she said, three of them gold. “I’m not mad about it. I’m pretty proud of it.”
Proud of herself. Proud of her close friend Jordan Chiles. And proud of the great (if friendly) rival that finally bested her.
Take a bow. Show the world.
