Simone Biles gets gold, Suni Lee bronze in individual all-around event – WSGW 790 AM & 100.5 FM
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Suni Lee and Simone Biles celebrate after the artistic gymnastics women’s all around individual final during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Bercy Arena in Paris, on August 1, 2024. PAUL ELLIS/AFP via Getty Images
Gymnastics superstar Simone Biles won gold in the women’s all-around final, becoming the first American to win the event twice. Teammate Suni Lee earned a bronze medal in the event. https://cbsn.ws/3WxXV0D
- Redemption is a noun that embodies the end result or the condition achieved after a process has taken place. It refers to salvation, recovery, or improvement. For example, when someone experiences redemption, they have been saved from a difficult situation or have improved their circumstances1.
Editor’s note: Follow Olympic gymnastics live results, scores and highlights as Simone Biles and the U.S. women’s team compete in the team final.
There are few athletes in American Olympic history more accomplished and revered than Simone Biles.
The gymnast is a six-time all-around champion at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships, a nine-time champion at the USA Gymnastics National Championships and a recipient of seven medals at the Summer Olympics. In 2022, she was presented with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States.
Simone Biles (USA) looks on after pulling out of the women’s team final during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Summer Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre.© Robert Deutsch, USA TODAY Sports
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By virtually any measurement, she’s considered one of the greatest gymnasts of all-time, someone whose profile and fame has transcended her own sport and turned her into a symbol of national pride.
2024 PARIS OLYMPICS: Follow USA TODAY’s complete coverage here
For someone whose career has been defined by winning and outright dominance, the 2020 Summer Olympics represented a break from that vaunted trend.
A heavy favorite in several events entering the Tokyo Games, Biles withdrew from much of the competition, though she still managed to secure two medals (one individual, one team). Her decision ignited a wide-ranging, occasionally intense public conversation around mental health and how it affects elite, seemingly unflappable athletes.
As Biles prepares for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, the third Olympics of her decorated career, here’s a look back at her experience at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, why she withdrew from the competition and what she can expect from the 2024 games:
Why did Simone Biles withdraw from the 2020 Olympics?
After her dominant performance at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in which she won four gold medals, including in the all-around, Biles entered the 2020 Tokyo Olympics not only as a favorite to replicate those feats, but as one of the most famous faces and biggest stars of the entire Olympics, at least from an American perspective. Questions loomed about whether she could even surpass what she had done five years earlier and win a record five gold medals at a single Olympics.
Ultimately, she found herself in the headlines, but for entirely unexpected reasons.
Biles’ difficulties began in the team competition. During an Amanar vault, Biles balked while in mid-air, doing only 1.5 twists instead of the customary 2.5 and nearly falling to the mat on her landing.
Those at the event immediately noticed something didn’t appear to be right, with NBC analyst Nastia Liukin, herself a former Olympic all-around champion, noting that “it looked like she almost got lost in the air” while executing the move. Biles had experienced a similar problem during warmups for the team final.
After the snafu, Biles left the competition floor and eventually withdrew from the team finals. Even without Biles, the United States won a silver medal, getting edged out by the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) for the gold.
In the immediate aftermath, USA Gymnastics said Biles pulled out due to a “medical issue” and would be “assessed daily to determine medical clearance for future competitions.” Following the event, Biles said she was not physically injured, but was prioritizing her mental health and trying to ensure that a diminished version of herself didn’t jeopardize her team’s chance at medaling.
“After the performance I did, I just didn’t want to go on,” Biles said at the time. “I have to focus on my mental health. I just think mental health is more prevalent in sports right now. We have to protect our minds and our bodies and not just go out and do what the world wants us to do. I don’t trust myself as much anymore. Maybe it’s getting older. There were a couple of days when everybody tweets you and you feel the weight of the world.
“We’re not just athletes. We’re people at the end of the day and sometimes you just have to step back. I didn’t want to go out and do something stupid and get hurt. I feel like a lot of athletes speaking up has really helped. It’s so big, it’s the Olympic Games. At the end of the day, we don’t want to be carried out of there on a stretcher.”
In the ensuing days, Biles withdrew from the uneven bars, vault and floor exercise competitions. She had won the gold medal in the vault and floor in the 2016 Summer Olympics.
Biles remained in the field for the balance beam and adjusted her routine, ditching her usual full-twisting double back tuck in favor of a double back pike. She earned a bronze medal in the event, matching her finish from five years earlier in Rio de Janeiro.
“It means more than all the golds because I’ve been through so much the last five years and the last week while I’ve even been here; it was just… it was very emotional,” she said on NBC’s “Today” Show. “And I’m just proud of myself and all of these girls as well.”
“I didn’t really care about the outcome,” she later added. “I was so happy that I made the routine and then I got to compete one more time.”
REQUIRED READING: Everything you need to know about Simone Biles, US Olympic gold medalist and the GOAT
What are the twisties?
Biles received widespread support as she endured her mental health struggles, but was also the subject of criticism from pundits and talking heads outside the world of gymnastics, some of whom labeled her a quitter.
In reality, her exit from the Olympics was much more nuanced.
While “mental health” can be a wide-ranging, sometimes nebulous term, what affected Biles was something much more specific.
Biles was dealing with what gymnasts call “the twisties,” something she referenced repeatedly while discussing her withdrawal from the various Olympics events. While the term sounds playful and even fun, it’s an incredibly serious matter.
Though it’s not a technical medical diagnosis, the twisties refer to the psychological phenomenon a gymnast experiences when they encounter a disconnect between their body and mind while performing skills, like twists, in competition. It can cause a gymnast to lose their sense of space and air awareness while executing a routine, potentially causing them to do more or fewer twists or flips than intended. In some instances, dealing with the twisties can prevent a gymnast from landing safely on the mat, which could result in serious injury. In other sports, they are analogous to what is colloquial called “the yips.”
Gymnasts who had dealt with the twisties or were aware of the debilitating effect of them came out to praise Biles and fight against whatever backlash had been directed at her. Among those coming to Biles’ defense was Jacoby Miles, who had bailed early on a skill during competition, stopping earlier than she was supposed to, and landed on her neck, paralyzing her from the chest down.
“She was brave enough and strong enough, even though it was the Olympic stage, to say ‘No, for my own safety, physical and mental health, I’m going to step out and make this decision,’” Miles said to Sports Illustrated. “I thought (it) was just really, really smart on her part.”
Biles took it upon herself to try to educate others on the twisties. In a series of posts on Instagram, Biles explained that her “mind and body are simply not in sync” and showed herself trying to complete a 1.5 twist before landing on her back.
“I don’t think you realize how dangerous this is on a hard/competitive surface,” she wrote in a caption.
Biles also wrote that while afflicted with the twisties that she “literally can not tell up from down. It’s the craziest feeling ever. Not having an inch of control over your body. What’s even scarier is since I have no idea where I am in the air I also have NO idea how I’m going to land. Or what I’m going to land on.”
How many Olympic gold medals does Simone Biles have?
Biles has won four gold medals at the Summer Olympics, all of which came in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. She won the all-around, vault and floor exercise individually and was part of the United States’ gold-medal-winning team in the team final.
Additionally, Biles has a silver medal from the 2020 team competition and a pair of bronze medals, both from the balance beam. Her seven total medals rank her in a tie for ninth all-time among female Olympic gymnasts and in a tie with Shannon Miller for the most by an American female gymnast.
Is Simone Biles going to the 2024 Paris Olympics?
Biles will be one of five female American gymnasts competing at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.
She is just the fourth American woman to ever make three Olympic gymnastics teams. With one medal, she would break a tie with Miller as the most decorated American female gymnast ever and with two gold medals, she could break Anton Heida’s record for most gold medals by an American female gymnast. She could also become just the third woman to win gold in the all-around twice, joining Larisa Latynina and Vera Caslavska.
At 27 years old in a sport that has historically favored teenaged competitors, she could become the oldest all-around champion since 1952, the oldest American to win an Olympic women’s gymnastics medal since 1948 and the oldest American ever to win a gold medal in women’s gymnastics (the current record-holder, Aly Raisman, was 22 when she did so in 2016).
Biles enters the competition still near the top of her game. She was the gold medalist in the all-around, balance beam and floor exercise at the 2023 World Championships. In 2024 U.S. National Championships in late May and early June, she swept the available gold medals, winning in the all-around, vault, uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise.
Simone Biles is the G.O.A.T. — and she knows it.
After winning the all-around final at the 2024 Paris Olympics, her second gold of the Games and her sixth Olympic gold, Biles, 27, quickly put on a new necklace handed to her by her teammate Jordan Chiles, a sparkly goat on a silver chain.
The goat around her neck was a reference to her G.O.A.T. — or Greatest of All Time — status as the most heavily decorated gymnast in history, and the U.S. gymnast with the most Olympic medals.
“My goat necklace is just kind of an ode, because the people love it and then some people hate it, so it’s like the best of both worlds. And I was like, okay, if it goes well, I’ll wear the goat necklace, I know people will go crazy over it,” Biles told reporters, including PEOPLE, in a press conference after the all-around final. “But at the end of the day, it is crazy that I’m in the conversation of greatest of all time athletes, because I still think I’m Simone Biles from Spring, Tx. that loves to flip.”
Biles won the all-around competition for a second time, after previously earning gold at the 2016 Rio Olympics. She finished first with a score of 59.131, beating second-place winner Rebeca Andrane of Brazil by 1.199 points. Biles’ U.S. teammate and 2020 Olympic all-around champion Suni Lee earned bronze with a score of 56.465.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What are the Twisties? Why USA’s Simone Biles withdrew from 2020 Tokyo Olympic gymnastic competitions
Everything Suni Lee Has Shared About Her Rare Kidney Disease | SELF
Story by Sydney Wingfield
Suni Lee is on top.
The Minnesota native—who became the first Asian-American woman to win the gold medal in the women’s all-around event four years ago at the Tokyo Olympics—just helped propel Team USA to win again. Suni—along with teammates Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Hezly Rivera—nabbed first place in July 30’s team event at the 2024 Games. Suni competed in bars, beam and floor.
“Olympic champions forever 
the 21-year-old captioned a celebratory Instagram.”
This is an extra-special win for Suni, who’s now looking to reclaim her individual all-around title after experiencing some scary health issues. In April 2023, Suni was diagnosed with two incurable kidney diseases after waking up with unexplained swelling in her ankles, face, hands, and legs months prior.
“I just kept getting more swollen,” the athlete shared in an interview with SELF.
For the 21-year-old, making the 2024 Games was an “incredible journey,” Suni told TODAY host Hoda Kotb.
There were so many times
“Where I thought about quitting and just giving up because I was so sick,” she said. “But once I had those people around me who lifted me up and supported me and just made sure that I was good, I knew that this is something that I wanted.”
Alongside sharing her incredible talent with the world, Suni has been open about her kidney diseases, struggling with eczema, and her mental health. Ahead, here’s everything to know about the gymnast’s health conditions.
Suni Lee has two incurable kidney diseases.
Suni initially blamed all the swelling she was experiencing throughout her body to her training regimen. After slipping off the bar at the gym, doctors then thought she was having an allergic reaction, but her symptoms didn’t go away.
“I kept peeling off the bar. I couldn’t hold on,” she told SELF. “My fingers were so swollen, and I couldn’t even do a normal kip cast to handstand on bars.” She told the outlet that she gained around 40 pounds.
Suni’s doctors first discovered one kidney disease, then a second. While Suni hasn’t shared her exact diagnosis, she has revealed that there isn’t a cure for her condition.
She’s currently in remission.
Last September, Suni was forced to sit out of the world championship team because of challenges related to her kidney disease medication.
“They’re still monkeying with the medication to try to get it so she reacts the same way each day,” her coach, Jess Graba, told USA Today. “As they’re adjusting the medication, then some days aren’t very good, so we have to adjust our training and sometimes we don’t train that day.”
In January 2024, Suni received a call from her doctor saying that her medications were working well, meaning she could head back to the gym and continue training.
“We have it under control now,” Suni told the Associated Press. “We know what to do and the right medication to take.”
She has eczema.
In June, Suni opened up at a panel in partnership with Eli Lilly and Company (the pharmaceutical company and health equity sponsor of Team USA) about her longtime journey with eczema. Eczema is an inflammatory skin condition which Suni was diagnosed with at a young age.
“My skin was always super dry, super flaky. It was really uncomfortable because it was really itchy,” she said, per CBS. “But my mom ended up taking me to the doctor and my doctor sent me to a dermatologist, and that’s when we got my diagnosis and we found the right treatment plan.”
The gymnast was embarrassed by the condition when she was younger because “nobody ever talked about it.” However, this encouraged her to be the role model she wished she had growing up.
“It can be kind of isolating when you deal with eczema and having an eczema flare-up.
So I just want people to know that you are not alone and it does not define you,” she said. “When you deal with it and you’re constantly looking down at your skin, you probably think, ‘Oh, other people are looking at it and staring at it.’ But in reality, I don’t really think anyone’s looking that hard.”
Because of her dry skin, she swears by Aquaphor’s Healing Ointment. “I use Aquaphor for everything. If I’m ever feeling very dry, I’ll put it on my face, use it on my lips. I also have eczema, so I put it on my eczema if it’s feeling irritated,” she told Pop Sugar in July 2024. “I feel like Aquaphor just fixes everything. I will never leave without it.”
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She’s open about her journey with mental health.
Competing in the Olympics for the second time can come with a lot of pressure, but she told Women’s Health that journaling helps her find peace before a competition. “It has been something that is both therapeutic and so incredibly helpful in my preparation for meets,” she said.
Suni also goes to therapy, a positive outlet that allows her to verbalize how she feels. “It’s always good to have outside help and just to be able to talk to somebody that doesn’t really know what’s going on,” she told WH.
As for her self-care routine, she keeps it simple. “If I do too much, I’ll just get overworked and start overthinking,” she said. “I just try and stay with what works, and I think this has been working the best.”
I enjoyed watching the interaction between her, Simone ( ) & Suni (
) of Team USA ! They showed much respect for one another throughout the competition.
Simon Biles Suni Lee Highlights – Search Videos (bing.com)
Snoops Olympics Greatest Hits – Search (bing.com)
Certainly! Kaylyn Brown, a 19-year-old sprinter from Charlotte, North Carolina, helped Team USA set a new world record in the mixed 4×400-meter relay at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. She ran the final leg of the relay, crossing the finish line at an impressive time of 3:07.41. This broke Team USA’s own previous record of 3:08.8 set at the 2023 World Championships12.
The mixed relay, which consists of two men and two women, is a relatively new event in the Olympics, making its debut at the Tokyo Games in 2020. The final for the Mixed 4×400-meter relay is scheduled for Saturday, August 3rd, at 2:55 PM2. Kaylyn’s performance was truly remarkable, and she played a crucial role. Bing Videos
Katie Ledecky most-decorated female U.S. Olympian – NBC New York