Olympic gymnastics highlights: Simone Biles wins gold medal in all-around

PARIS — It was closer than expected, but the final result was no surprise.

Simone Biles cemented her legacy as the world’s most dominant gymnast Thursday night, narrowly defeating Rebeca Andrade of Brazil in the 2024 Paris Olympics all-around final to become the oldest all-around Olympic champion since 1952. Biles, 27, is also just the third woman in history to win multiple golds in the all-around, and the first to win all-around titles eight years apart. Andrade finished silver and Suni Lee took bronze.

Biles, who hasn’t lost an all-around competition in more than a decade, gave herself a bit of work to do after a major mistake on uneven bars, which left her sitting third at the midway point behind both Andrade and Kaylia Nemour of Algeria. But she responded by hitting a big routine on the sport’s trickiest apparatus, balance beam, and then put the competition to bed with a typically brilliant performance on floor.

“I’m getting uncomfortable guys!” says of how close she was to Andrade. “I was stressing. But I knew if I did my work it’d all be fine.”

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Thursday’s victory gave Biles her second Olympic gold of these Games, after the U.S. women’s squad captured gold in the team final on Tuesday, and her ninth Olympic medal overall, the most ever won by an American gymnast. In the coming days, Biles could add as many as three more golds as she is due to compete in the apparatus finals for balance beam, floor exercise and vault.