Biles wins Olympic gold as USA dominates team final

The all-around team final is a wild circus of a night with flips and spins and falls in all directions, and you need four eyes to watch. But at 8.20pm there was only one routine left to perform, and for 90 seconds the room belonged to Simone Biles.

- LAWRENCE OSTLERE

She performed with spring and extraordinary height, the highlight of which was a triple twisting double-back somersault which is hard enough to write, let alone deliver in an Olympic final. The routine contained some flaws on landing but it is a measure of her otherworldly skill that her score of 14.666 was still the best all night by a distance. She sealed gold with a kiss and the Bercy Arena erupted.

Eight years after winning her fourth Olympic gold medal, Biles now has her fifth. It is her 38th world and Olympic medal, if anyone is still counting at this point. She did it with cameras inches from her face at every turn. She did it performing slightly within herself, stepping back from the edge. And she did it as part of a phenomenally talented team.

After losing to Russia in Tokyo following Biles’s dramatic withdrawal, the USA regained their women’s all-around team crown with a dominant display. Biles top-scored on the vault with a slightly easier degree of difficulty than the “Biles II” she dazzled with in qualifying. But it was Suni Lee who top-scored on the uneven bars and the balance beam in what was a group effort alongside Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles, whose Beyonceinspired floor routine locked victory before Biles’s finishing touch.