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The U.S. women’s Olympic gymnastics team is set, meet the team
Simone Biles is back along with some returning faces as the team looks to build on their Tokyo team silver medal at the Paris Games.
Simone Biles and the U.S. women’s gymnastics team is competing in the team final at the 2024 Paris Olympics today. Biles and her teammates Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera are heavy favorites to win gold, a dominant qualifying again showing how far ahead they are of their competitors. Biles tweaked her calf in qualifying, but still blew everyone out of the water in the session and will do all four events in the team final.
USA TODAY Sports will bring you live results, scores and highlights throughout the day. Follow along.
Simone Biles and the U.S. women’s gymnastics team compete in the Olympics team final today.
Biles and her teammates start the team final at 12:15 p.m. ET. NBC is airing it, Peacock is live streaming it.
Cecile Landi, one of Biles’ coaches, said there are no concerns about Biles continuing to compete in Paris after tweaking her calf and having her ankle tape during Sunday’s qualifying session. Landi said “she felt better at the end (of the session), yeah.”
Landi went on to say there was no discussion about Biles not continuing to compete on Sunday. “Never in her mind,” Landi said. Landi also said there was no discussion about Biles doing just one vault or watering down her planned skills. Landi was then asked what Biles did with her leg: “Just a little pain in her calf. She felt it a little bit on floor. And we taped it to kind of (tighten) it up.” Biles finished competing in the qualifying session with her left ankle taped. Here’s everything we know about Simone Biles’ injury and her tweaked calf.
The Biles II is also known as the Yurchenko double pike, one of five moves named after Simone Biles. Vaults are categorized by “families,” which are based on the entry. On Yurchenko vaults, a gymnast does a roundoff onto the takeoff board and a back handspring onto the table. Biles then follows it with a double somersault in the piked position.
Few men even try this vault, which is so difficult because of the power it takes to get two somersaults as well as its lack of a bailout. If something goes awry, more likely to land on her head or neck than her knees.
Biles began doing this vault in 2021 but didn’t do it at a worlds or Olympics until the 2023 world championships. With a 6.4 difficulty value, it is the hardest vault in the women’s code.
When Biles did the vault last year, she took a half-point deduction for having coach Laurent Landi standing on the landing mat, ready to step in and redirect her into a safe position if it looked as if she was headed for a scary landing. But neither Biles nor Landi feel the need for him to do that anymore.
The most difficult vault commonly executed by other gymnasts is valued at 5.6, eight-tenths lower than the Biles II, so doing it gives Biles a huge scoring advantage.
Simone Biles’ moves named after her: What to know
Simone Biles has left her mark on the sport of gymnastics. In addition to her record number of medals — she has 37 at the world championships and Olympics, more than any other gymnast, male or female — Biles has five skills named after her. Skills are named after the first gymnast to do them in a major international competition, like the world championships or Olympics. She has two on vault, two on floor exercise and one on balance beam. Here’s are the Simone Biles moves named after her. — Nancy Armour
Nellie Biles is happy to see the joy back on her daughter’s face at the 2024 Paris Olympics, but she told USA TODAY Sports on Monday her heart skipped a beat when Simone Biles briefly left Sunday’s qualifying session after tweaking her calf.
“Well, I was worried about that,” Nellie Biles said after an appearance on NBC’s TODAY show. “Then I saw her up there to do that Yurchenko (double pike on the vault), I’m like, ‘For real?’ And then I gave her the thumbs up to see if she was OK and she nodded, so I’m like, ‘OK, she’s fine,’ and she went and she threw it. It was great. It was great. I’m like, ‘OK, then I guess you’re fine.'”
Simone Biles gets ankle taped, US women dominate team qualification
Despite a tweaked calf, Simone Biles and the U.S. women led the gymnastics team qualification round.
Both Biles’ mother and brother, Ron Jr., said Monday they’re thrilled to see her healthy and happy ahead at these Paris Olympics.
“I just want to see her just be happy, man, succeed, and we’ve got no expectations as a family,” Ron Biles Jr. said. “Not putting anything on her but just want her to feel comfortable, confident, fulfilled when it’s all complete and done. Just really just see her in her element. She’s worked so hard to get back, gone through a lot and I’m just so happy just to see her in Paris.”
“I’m very proud as a mother to watch her and see her enjoying what she’s doing,” Nellie Biles said. “It’s different. Every time I watch her compete. It all depends on where she’s at mentally, and now I could tell that she’s in a very good place and she’s enjoying it. And you know, it is so good to see. It is so good to see.”
Olympic gymnastics schedule
Here’s the full Paris Olympics gymnastics schedule.
- The women’s team final begins at 12:15 p.m. ET Tuesday, July 30.
- The women’s all-around final is at 12:15 p.m. ET Thursday, Aug. 1.
- The women’s vault final is at 10:20 a.m. ET Saturday, Aug. 3.
- The women’s uneven bars final is at 9:40 a.m. ET Sunday, Aug. 4.
- The women’s balance beam final (6:36 a.m. ET) and floor exercise final (8:20 a.m.) are Monday, Aug. 5.
How to watch gymnastics at Paris Olympics
NBC is airing the team final live, Peacock is live streaming the team final.
How does Olympic gymnastics scoring work?
A gymnastics routine gets two scores: One for difficulty, also known as the D score or start value, and one for execution. Every gymnastics skill has a numerical value, and the D score is the sum total of the skills in a routine. The execution score, or E score, reflects how well the skills were done. A gymnast starts with a 10.0, and deductions for flaws and form errors are taken from there. Add the D and E scores together, and that’s your total for an apparatus. (Vault scores will always be higher because it’s a single skill.)
Simone Biles’ husband is Jonathan Owens, a safety for the Chicago Bears.
His career is self-made. He was an undrafted free agent out of Missouri Western and signed with the Arizona Cardinals in April 2018. Less than a month later, he tore his ACL and spent his entire rookie season on injured reserve.
He was cut by the Cardinals at the end of training camp in 2019 and signed with the Houston Texans on Sept. 30, 2019. Owens spent most of that season on the practice squad, though he did make his NFL debut Nov. 21, 2019, against Indianapolis.
Owens moved between the Texans’ practice squad and the active roster the next two seasons, playing in 13 games and making two starts. He enjoyed a breakout season in 2022, starting all 17 games for the Texans and ranking second on the team with 125 tackles. He also had one sack.
“I’m a big believer in adversity builds character, builds who you are. Me being someone cut five times — if I was first-round draft pick, I wouldn’t be the person I am today,” Owens said. “I’ve had so many things not go my way, I started to realize I’m stressing about wrong things. Attitude and effort, those are the things you’re going to control. The outcome is going to take care of itself.”
Owens signed with the Green Bay Packersas a free agent in May 2023, days after he and Biles returned from their Mexico wedding. He spent one season there, playing in all 17 games and making 11 starts. In addition to 74 tackles, he had a sack and a forced fumble, and he also recovered a fumble for a touchdown.
He signed a two-year deal with the Bears in March.
“I’m just a little more free-spirited (now) and I think Jonathan has helped. His career, with the uncertainty, has helped. I’ve just tried not to control everything that I can’t control anymore,” Biles said.
He’s here! Jonathan Owens landed in Paris on Tuesday morning, hours before the team final. He’d posted a photo of himself on a plane to his Instagram story Monday night, with the caption, “Coming for you baby.” About 10 hours later, another photo of a street scene with the “Paris, France” location tag.
The Bars gave Owens off July 29 to Aug. 3, which includes their first preseason game: Aug. 1 against the Houston Texans, Owens’ old team. That means in addition to the team final, Owens will be able to watch Biles in the all-around final on Thursday, Aug. 1.
Owens said he asked the Bears for the time off when he was negotiating his contract with them in the spring. It wasn’t a hard sell. While this is Owens’ first season with the Bears, it’s his seventh in the NFL and many teams rest their veterans for some or all preseason games, anyway. The team is recording all meetings for Owens and sending him defensive installs so he can keep up while he’s gone.
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