Simone Biles remains peerless. Even when she's not quite perfect. The American gymnastics star edged Brazil's Rebeca Andrade during a tense Olympic all-around final on Thursday, per the AP. Biles' total of 59.131 was just over a point ahead of Andrade at 57.932, one of the closest calls Biles has ever endured at a major international event. Fellow American Sunisa Lee, the Tokyo Olympics champion, earned bronze despite spending much of the last 15 months dealing with multiple kidney diseases that left her return to the Games very much in doubt.
The 27-year-old Biles became the third woman to become a two-time Olympic champion, joining Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union in 1956 and 1960, and Vera Caslavska of Czechoslovakia in 1964 and 1968. Biles also is the oldest woman to claim the biggest title in her sport since then 30-year-old Maria Gorokhovskaya of the Soviet Union won the first-ever Olympic all-around in Melbourne in 1952. Yet the sixth gold and ninth overall medal—the same as Romanian great Nadia Comaneci—of Biles' career did not come as easy as so many before. She misjudged a transition on uneven bars, the weakest of her four events, letting go of the upper bar too soon and forcing her to reach for a larger-than-expected gap.
The deficit didn't last. Biles responded with a largely wobble-free 14.566 on the balance beam, the highest of the night among the 24 finalists, while Andrade was forced to do a major balance check during her slightly easier set that dropped her down to second heading into floor exercise, Biles' signature event. When she was done—sealing gold that served as a redemption of sorts three years after pulling out of multiple finals in Tokyo to focus on her mental health—Biles sprinted to hug Lee just off the podium and blew kisses to the cameras. While there may be more medals on the way—Biles is in three event finals later in the Games—the all-around puts her into the conversation as perhaps the greatest American Olympian ever.
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