There was one moment during the Olympic women's team gymnastics final when I worried. It came, no surprise, on the balance beam. Jordan Chiles fell on her entry. Up until that moment, Chiles had been having the meet of her life, with excellent turns on vault and on uneven bars resolving into the kind of solid, crowd-pleasing performances the UCLA Bruin is known for. And then, ugh, a fall.
But what followed was a prime example of what makes this team so special. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone, as the cliché goes, falls off the proverbial horse. In gymnastics, which like all sports is as much about mentality as physical ability, falls can cascade through a routine or even an entire team; just ask France, a favorite to medal this year as the host country, now out of the entire competition after a disastrous qualification round. If there was a moment when the U.S. might lose momentum, when cracks could show, it would be here.
The exact opposite happened. Chiles got back on beam and crushed the rest of her routine. Her ankles never quivered. Her landings stayed secure. She performed the rest of her routine so well that the fall deduction didn't even seem like that big of a deal by the end. Fall? What fall. Olympic medalist turned commenter Laurie Hernandez summed it all up as "a monster routine for Jordan Chiles," before the scored appeared: 12.733.
From there, the U.S. team did exactly what it was expected to do—crush the rest of the competition. In a sport decided by tenths of a point, the U.S. women won by more than five points over the silver medalist, Italy, and they did so even without using their most difficult skills. Biles did not compete her Yurchenko Double Pike vault. Suni Lee used an easier balance beam mount. And Jade Carey didn't perform on floor, likely due to an illness that came up in qualifying. Brazil took home bronze.
It certainly felt good, three years after the U.S. team took home silver in Tokyo at a competition held without fans due to COVID-19, to see the entire team—Biles, Carey, Chiles, Lee, and Hezly Rivera—jumping up and down and celebrating while a packed stadium filled with their family, friends, fans and celebrities cheered them on. Even Biles's husband, Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens, made sure to do his job: He showed up in a Biles fan T-shirt and kept score on pen and paper throughout the meet.
NBC's Rich Lerner was quick to tell viewers, "Now that's a comeback." But this win is more than just a comeback. It is, hopefully, the final dagger in the supposed supremacy of the little-girl gymnast. This team had two Olympic all-around gold medalists on it and an average age of 22, and that's including 16-year-old Hezly Rivera, the newcomer on a team of Tokyo veterans. This team is experienced, and it showed. Every time a mistake could have cascaded, or the mood could have turned, this team picked itself up and said, Nope. They had been there, done that, and couldn't be shaken. All that old mythology about younger being better, by the end of their rotation, might just as well have been dumped in the Seine. Lerner called the team "seasoned and accomplished," a far cry from the years when gymnasts being older than 16 was seen as a problem by commentators on TV.
Tuesday's statement victory completed a strong run that began in qualifications last weekend. There, the U.S. had to start on beam, then moved on to floor, where Biles appeared to hurt her calf during warmups. Adding to the sense that something might go amiss was Carey's floor routine, where the reigning Olympic gold medalist made several mistakes, including a fall. It meant Carey would not defend her floor gold medal. (She later told Olympics.com that she had been ill leading up to the qualification round.)
What did Biles do? She taped her ankled and delivered a stunning floor routine, and the rest of her teammates flew through qualifications. They kept flying during Tuesday's final—Carey and Chiles were great on the vault, Lee was sparkling on the uneven bars and beam, and Biles wrapped it all up with another dominant all-around performance. When the final scores were announced and the gold medal was captured, the team looked not just happy, but genuinely pumped. There were hugs, smiles, and laughter. It was damn near a perfect ending, the only downside being that the two-per-country rule means Chiles doesn't have a slot in the individual all-around behind Biles and Lee.
On Jan. 1, few people would have predicted such a redemption for this team. Lee, Chiles, and Carey all competed in college before saying they would try to return to the Olympics, but the U.S. is so deep with gymnastics talent that no spot is secure. All three had to work to get back into elite form and compete in a field that now included gymnasts who had spent the Tokyo Olympics watching them on TV. And everyone had to stay healthy, no small feat in a sport as brutal and punishing as gymnastics.
For Lee, staying healthy and safe became a greater challenge after Tokyo, where her all-around gold brought her to a new level of fame, one far beyond the world of hardcore gymnastics fans. Tokyo turned Lee into an overnight American hero at the age of 18. She came home to millions of social media followers, competed on Dancing with the Stars, appeared on daytime TV, and nabbed an invite to the Met Gala.
So too came the dark side of overnight fame. Before the Olympics, Lee opened up to the New York Times about her life after becoming America's newest gymnastics sweetheart. Her parents wanted her to stay home in Minnesota, but Lee wanted to forge a life for herself. She lived on her own for the first time in L.A. while filming DWTS, and she told the Times that during those months a group of people inside a passing car shouted racial slurs at her and a group of Asian friends while also spraying pepper spray. At Auburn, her college coach told the Times she required a security guard who had to sweep her hotel room before the final meet due to two men who were stalking her.
Soon after leaving Auburn to pursue an Olympic comeback, Lee's health issues began. Doctors would diagnose her with two kidney diseases, and initially told her she wouldn't do gymnastics again. It wasn't until January of this year, she told the Times, that doctors told her that her medications were working well.
At Olympic trials earlier this year, three gymnasts expected to compete for spots on the team—including Shilese Jones, who'd been considered a lock for the team after helping the U.S. win gold last year at World Championships—all went down with injuries. The successive felling of gymnasts brought the mood down in the arena, so much so the TV commentators couldn't ignore it. But then Lee showed she was back, Chiles reminded everyone she is that girl, Carey nailed her floor routine, and suddenly it all came together. The impossible-seeming Tokyo reunion at Paris became a reality.
On Tuesday, the reunion tour kicked into high gear. An ongoing narrative around this team has been one of redemption, and I can see why. Biles had the hope of a nation on her shoulders in Tokyo and, when she had to withdraw due to the twisties, felt a scorn I could only imagine and wish on nobody. Lee had her own life turned inside out by fame and then kidney disease. Carey fell in the Tokyo vault final. Chiles had to grind to return to form. But what if all that made this team stronger, more ready for the moment than they ever could have been?
