Simone Biles rose to her feet after going through her stretches on the green carpet, took one last pull from a bottle of water and gave her long-time coach Aimee Boorman a high five before stepping on to the competition podium on Sunday afternoon for the maiden performance of her Olympic career.
What happened over the next 88 minutes was simultaneously expected and extraordinary as Biles, who for months has borne the weight of impossible expectations on her spritely 4ft 8in, 105lb frame, showed the impeccable form that could send her home from Rio with as many as five gold medals.
The 19-year-old posted the highest score on the floor exercise (15.733) and vault (16.050) and was also the top qualifier on the beam routine, performing with brio and sticking her dismount perfectly to close the team’s final rotation. She even posted a 15.000 on the uneven bars, the lone apparatus where she has shown flickers of mortality.
Her all-around score of 62.366 was more than three points better than any non-American gymnast who had competed. Aly Raisman finished second (60.607) and will join Biles in the individual all-around final while Gabby Douglas – despite a third-place finish (60.131) – was denied a chance to defend the all-around gold she won in London due to a rule limiting the event finals to two competitors per country.
The 1-2-3 finish lifted the United States to the highest qualifying score (185.238) by nearly 10 points. China, Russia, Great Britain, Brazil, Germany, Japan and the Netherlands also qualified to round out the field of eight for Tuesday afternoon’s team final.
“I wanted to qualify into the event finals if I did my very best and today I did that. I’m a little less nervous because it’s done and I qualified,” Biles said afterwards to the small army of reporters that mobbed her in the mixed zone. “Now it’s just about consistency.”
From a team standpoint Sunday’s qualifying at Rio Olympic Arena was largely a formality for the United States, who since the fall of the Iron Curtain have emerged at the head of gymnastics’ new world order.
Yet it was a chance for the crowd to have a first look at the prodigy from suburban Houston who has been widely hailed as the greatest the sport has ever seen despite having never competed in an Olympics until now.
Born three months short of the age cut-off for London 2012, Biles has come to obscure the sport itself in winning the all-around at 12 consecutive international competitions dating back to her rookie senior season in 2013. She has captured 14 medals at world championships, including 10 golds, and last year became the first woman to earn a third straight world all-around title. Raisman will join Biles in the floor final. Laurie Hernandez qualified for the beam final with a score of 15.366 after a flawless set, while Douglas and Madison Kocian will attempt to win medals in the bars.
“I am pleased because they showed the consistency that I was expecting,” said Martha Karolyi, the legendary national team coordinator who is retiring after Rio. “For the last three weeks being in a training camp in Houston and then after that here, we did modeling. Which means in a training session you try to come as close as possible to competition situations.
“I explained that if you hit every routine in a workout gym, why would you be nervous when you come out in the arena? You just have to think: ‘I just have to do one more of those routines that I already did.’ I think it’s proven that this is the right method to have the girls to be confident and consistent.”
After dismounting from the beam routine Biles excitedly hurried off the podium and wrapped Hernandez in a bear hug before greeting her other team-mates, having completed the team’s 16th routine of the afternoon without a mistake. They will return on Tuesday to finish what they started in the team competition.
“I don’t think you feel pressure whenever your team-mates go up and hit,” Biles said. “You almost feel confident that you’re the next one that you can do it because once the first person goes, they kind of set a rhythm.”
Boorman added: “The girls were so prepared, not only physically prepared but mentally prepared. It’s a nice place to be because do you don’t have to snap anybody out of a bad place.
“When you come out you have such a great day like today it just builds your confidence that you can do it again and again and again. I don’t think there’s any doubt in their minds that they can continue on this path.”
