Brilliant Biles bags 5th Olympic gold

PARIS, France (AFP) — Simone Biles led the United States to a dominant victory in the women’s gymnastics team final on Tuesday, laying the ghosts of Tokyo to rest as she claimed a fifth career Olympic gold medal.

Three years after Biles battled a disorientating mental block in Tokyo, pulling out of the team final in which the United States settled for silver, she and teammates Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Sunisa Lee led wire-to-wire in reclaiming gold ahead of Italy, with Brazil taking a historic bronze.

The Americans already had gold in hand when Biles electrified the Bercy Arena crowd with a gravity-defying floor routine that featured two of her signature skills — a double backflip with a half twist and the “triple-double” of two back flips with three twists.

She said she knew after she’d landed her opening vault — not her signature double Yurchenko but a marginally less difficult Cheng — that she and the US was on its way.

“After I finished vault, I was relieved,” Biles said.

“I was like, ‘Whew, because at least no flashbacks or anything.”

“As soon as I landed in the vault, I was like, Oh yeah, I’m definitely — we’re going to do this.”

The United States combined for the highest score on all four apparatus for a total of 171.296 points and a whopping 5.802-point margin over Italy — whose last team medal was a silver in 1928.

For the Brazilian squad led by Tokyo vault gold medalist Rebeca Andrade it was a first Olympic team medal.

The Americans grabbed their third team gold in four Games after victories in 2012 and 2016.

This one was especially sweet for a quartet of gymnasts who were all in Tokyo when that streak was broken.

For Biles it marks a return to the Olympic summit after a two-year break as she focused on her mental health, and she said the sensation of her second team gold — eight years after her first in Rio, was different.

“It was just like we were a little young and naive,” she said.

“So it didn’t hit the way that it does now.”

“Now that I’m much older, we have so much more experience and we’re out here really having fun and enjoying what we’re doing — so I think it’s just different.”

Biles now has eight Olympic medals, the most of any US gymnast in history, and once again the stars were out for the sport’s greatest ever.

Serena Williams, Nicole Kidman and Bill Gates were on hand, as was Biles’s husband, National Football League player Jonathan Owens in a T-shirt emblazoned with his wife’s name and picture.