Simone Biles helped inspire the United States to victory in the women’s gymnastics team final last Tuesday as her self-billed “redemption tour” got off to a dream start.
The United States won silver in the team final at Tokyo 2020 with Biles later withdrawing from the Games because of the ‘twisties’, a destabilizing mental block similar to the ‘yips’ in golf or baseball.
But Biles was back to her best in Sunday’s qualifying session and was solid again on all four apparatus. She scored 14.900 on the balance beam as the USA assembled a formidable team score of 171.296 — almost six points ahead of second-placed Italy. Brazil took bronze.
The USA’s gold is their eleventh Olympic medal in the women’s team event.
