RIO DE JANEIRO — If there’s a quibble to make with Simone Biles, it’s that she competes with such joy and such weightless effervescence that she does herself a disservice, in a way, by making gymnastics look so easy.
You won’t catch her grimacing.
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She will never double over with exhaustion, tongue dangling, between routines.
For Biles, flipping through the air is such fun, such a party, that no theatrics are needed other than the few flecks of glitter with which she lines her eyes so they match her sparkly leotard.
On Thursday, Biles invited a raucous crowd in the stands and millions of viewers at home to her Olympic party, which concluded with a floor exercise routine that exploded with high-flying acrobatics and radiated complete abandon.
After briefly ceding the lead midway through the competition on her weakest event, the uneven bars, Biles charged back to claim Olympic all-around gold, her sport’s most coveted prize, by more than two points over her U.S. teammate and role model, Aly Raisman, who took silver.
Aliya Mustafina of Russia took a distant bronze.
Biles has a chance for three more gold medals in the coming week, when she competes in the finals of vault, balance beam and floor exercise.
“It would be amazing!” Biles gushed. “But that’s crazy to think about.”
Raisman was just as overjoyed with her silver and burst into tears almost the moment she threw her hands up to signal the end of a tremendous floor routine that clinched her finish.
Biles followed, the final performer. She peeked at Raisman, so happy for her teammate, and nearly came unglued as her own music cued.
“I saw Aly start to cry!” Biles said. “I thought, ‘My goodness, she’s going to make me cry before I got out, and that’s not going to be good.’ ”
But floor exercise has always been Biles’ moment to shine. The tumbling mat turned into her canvas, and she painted furiously and brilliantly, flipping to impossible heights as she crisscrossed the mat. Her music’s samba flavor thrilled the crowd.
“It never gets old watching her,” Raisman said of Biles. “It’s incredible. It’s amazing. She handled the pressure so well.”
Biles started the competition on vault, executing the 21/2-twist feat that only a handful of women have dared attempt in competition. While her landing was a bit off, she established herself as the leader on the first rotation, with Raisman behind, followed by Rebeca Andrade of Brazil.
From there the Americans proceeded to the uneven bars. Of the four apparatuses in women’s gymnastics, it’s the least suited to Biles’ compact physique. Still, she was clean and precise.
The score (14.966) was respectable but not enough to fend off Mustafina, the world champion on the event. The Russian outscored Biles by 0.700 points on the apparatus to wrest the lead.
Balance beam followed. Few competitors attempt routines on the four-inch wide beam that are as technically difficult as Biles’. Though she has practiced it to the point that her muscles need no direction, the beam has a heartless way of exposing jitters. And Biles was human.
She wobbled early. And though she stayed on, never missing an acrobatic flip or connection, she wasn’t the bold, free-flowing performer she typically is on beam.
Still, there’s a huge gap between her beam skills and the rest of the gymnastics world. Her score, 15.433, was the highest awarded on beam to that point but shy of her typical mark.
Then came floor exercise, and no gymnast attempts a routine as difficult as Biles’. And Raisman is the 2012 Olympic champion on floor.
Mustafina, the Americans’ biggest medal threat, preceded them, and her sub-14.000 score created an opening for a 1-2 finish for the U.S teammates as they moved to the floor.
Raisman, competing second to last, tossed off the anxiety she had earlier once her music started. Her tumbling was powerful, her dance connections womanly, fitting for an experienced gymnast of 22. And when she finished, no doubt that the score would assure her of a silver medal at worst, the U.S. team captain broke into sobs.
When Biles finished her floor routine, there was no need to wait for a score. She ran off the mat and was smothered in hugs.
No one could touch Biles on this afternoon.
No gymnast soared so high.
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