The U.S. women’s gymnastics team is well positioned to win the Olympic team gold medal not solely because of talent but also because of experience.
Four of the five women suiting up this month were members of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic team. With two all-around Olympic champions and four Olympic medalists, the 2024 Paris group is the most experienced and most decorated in U.S. history.
Simone Biles, with 37 Olympic and world championship medals, is the headliner. Her Olympic medal collection consists of two bronzes, one silver and four golds, including the most coveted hardware in the sport: the Olympic all-around gold medal.
She is tied with Shannon Miller for the most Olympic medals for U.S. gymnasts, a record she is likely to break in Paris as the reigning world champion in the all-around, beam, floor and team events.
Biles will be joined in Paris by reigning Olympic all-around champion Suni Lee, Olympic silver medalist Jordan Chiles, Olympic gold medalist Jade Carey and first-year senior Hezly Rivera.
Biles called the coming Olympics a “redemption tour” for the Tokyo returners.
“I feel like we all have more to give and our Tokyo performances weren’t the best,” Biles said Sunday at the Olympic trials in Minneapolis. “We weren’t under the best circumstances, either, but I feel like we have a lot of weight on our shoulders to go out there and prove that we’re better athletes.”
Team USA settled for the silver medal in the team event in Tokyo after a few uncharacteristic mistakes. Chiles fell on floor exercise, and Biles got lost in the air on her vault before a case of the “twisties” forced her to withdraw from the competition.
“We’re more mature, we’re smarter, and we’re more consistent,” Biles said this week.
With the Russian gymnasts banned from participating in Paris because of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the Brazilian and Chinese teams are expected to be the U.S. women’s biggest rivals in the team competition.
The Brazilian team is also flush with Olympic experience and hardware, with Rebeca Andrade having made her debut in Rio like Biles. She became the first Brazilian to claim an Olympic medal in women’s artistic gymnastics, winning silver in the all-around and gold on vault in Tokyo.
Brazil is eyeing its first Olympic team medal after it won its first world medal as a team last year.
Aside from Biles, the U.S. is loaded with veteran talent. Lee is a star on the uneven bars, where she is the reigning Olympic bronze medalist. Including the silver medal she helped Team USA win in the team final, she won three medals in Tokyo, one of each color.
“I want to make all-around finals,” Lee said Sunday. “I want to be in the top three for the bars final, and I really want a beam gold.”
“I feel like I always make the final and then I always mess up, it’s so annoying,” she said laughing.
She made the beam final at the Tokyo Games and has Olympic medal potential in that event. Her 14.600 beam score at the Core Hydration Classic is among the highest scores in the world this year.
Carey, the reigning Olympic floor champion, narrowly missed the podium on vault in Tokyo. She qualified in second place behind Biles heading into the vault final but tripped on the runway during finals, a fluke incident that she has credited with motivating her Olympic comeback.
“A lot of us will say we want redemption and we all had something that didn’t go our way,” Carey said after she made her second Olympic team.
As it was with the rest of the Tokyo Olympians, her experience was hampered by a postponement and other Covid-related restrictions. She is looking forward to a more immersive Olympic environment in Paris.
“Having a normal experience, having our families there, meeting other athletes, that’s something I’m really looking forward to,” Carey said.
Despite Rivera’s relative inexperience, she expressed confidence in her teammates to guide her through the Olympic spotlight.
“They’ve already been through it, they’ve been through the journey, they’ve been to the Olympic Games, they’ve been through the pressure,” Rivera, 16, said Sunday. “I think they’ll be able to mentor me and help me so much, not just during the competition but throughout the whole process of training.”
Biles, 27, will be the oldest female American gymnast to compete at the Olympics in 72 years.
All but one of the team members are in their 20s, a marked departure from the previous gold medal-winning U.S. Olympic gymnastics teams. This year’s team is nearly six years older than the “Fierce Five” from the London 2012 Olympics, whose average age was 16.4.
That team, as well as the 2008 Olympic team, was made up of first-time Olympians.
The 2016 Rio Olympic team had two Olympic returners, Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas. In Tokyo, Biles was the only athlete on the team who had previously competed at the Olympics.
Raisman, who was 22 during the Rio Games, was referred to as the “grandmother” by her teammates at the time.
“I definitely have to apologize to Aly for calling her ‘Grandma,’ because I feel like I’m way older now,” Biles said. “Recovery I just have to take a little more seriously. Back in Rio, I could do anything. … I was just like a little hamster on a wheel, always running.”
