Simone Biles and Suni Lee already hold membership cards in gymnastics’ most-exclusive club, but they’ve never faced off on an Olympic stage before — until now.
That long-awaited match-up will unfold in Paris Thursday as Biles and Lee go for gold in the all-around final.
The pair will make history regardless of the outcome as the first Olympic all-around champions to ever go head-to-head in the quest for a repeat title.
“The Star-Spangled Banner” could reverberate in Bercy Arena again this week after the U.S. women won team gold on Tuesday.
U.S. gymnasts have taken the individual all-around at the last five Olympics: Athens, Beijing, London, Rio and Tokyo. Biles and Lee have a chance to add Paris to that list.
How to watch the women’s all-around final
The women’s all-around final will be held in Paris’ Bercy Arena at 12:15 p.m. ET on Aug. 1. It will air live on NBC, USA Network and E! and stream on the Peacock and NBC Olympics platforms.
The primetime broadcast will air at 8 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock.
Stream every moment and every medal of the 2024 Paris Olympics on Peacock.
Biles, who won the all-around title at the 2016 Rio Olympics, topped the all-around standings in Sunday’s qualifiers for a third consecutive Olympics, flanked by Rebeca Andrade and Lee.
Three years ago in Tokyo, Lee narrowly edged Andrade to win the sport’s most prestigious individual honor, keeping the 20-year American dynasty alive.
Who is favored to make the podium?
If all three perform to their potential, the final podium is expected to reflect the qualifying standings: Biles, Andrade, then Lee.
Algerian uneven bars phenom Kaylia Nemour, Italy’s Alice D’Amato and China’s Qiu Qiyuan could contend for medals as well if the frontrunners falter.
Biles scored 59.566 all-around in qualifying, a number that would have won the last two world championships. She did not compete in the 2022 championships, where Andrade claimed the gold, but will enter the Olympic final as the reigning world champion from 2023.
Andrade closed the gap between herself and Biles in the team final, setting the stage for a nail-biter ahead of Thursday’s competition.
She posted an all-around score that was just 0.366 behind Biles, the equivalent of a minor wobble on the beam or a leap out of bounds on floor.
While that’s a significantly tighter margin between the two stars than ever before, Biles played it safe on vault on Tuesday, opting for a Cheng rather than the daring Yurchenko double pike that bears her name.
She is expected to perform her full difficulty in Thursday’s final, which will give her over a point of advantage over Andrade in terms of start value. That’s a buffer equal to a fall.
Lee has not competed in an all-around final since the Tokyo win that launched her into Olympic stardom three years ago. Andrade was expected to top the podium there after Biles withdrew due to the “twisties,” but she stepped out of bounds twice at the eleventh hour on the floor exercise, and Lee clinched the gold.
Russia’s Angelina Melnikova took bronze in Tokyo and won the 2021 world all-around title, but will not compete in Paris due to the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Lee secured the chance to defend her all-around title with a routine on the uneven bars on Sunday, an event where she is the reigning Olympic bronze medalist. Lee bested her teammate, Jordan Chiles, by less than a tenth for the all-around spot during the qualifying round. Lee opted for a slightly more conservative routine there, taking out a precarious connection between risky release skills.
She’ll likely have to go all out on Thursday to hang with Biles and Andrade.
How does the all-around final work?
The top 24 gymnasts from the qualifying round advance to the individual all-around final. Only the top two gymnasts from each country move on to each final due to the two-per-country rule.
Each gymnast competes on all four apparatuses and all scores count. In case of a tie, the gymnast with the higher execution score prevails. If they tie in execution as well, the lowest apparatus score from each gymnast is dropped.
The top flight of contenders, including Biles, will compete in what’s called “Olympic order:” vault, bars, beam and finally, floor.
If Biles reclaims her all-around crown, she’ll become the first gymnast to win two Olympic all-around championships non-consecutively. No American has won the Olympic all-around more than once.
If Biles or Lee win, they would join Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union and Věra Čáslavská of Czechoslovakia as repeat Olympic all-around champions.
Both are gymnastics legends who last competed in the 1960s.
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