PARIS — Minutes after American gymnastics star Simone Biles won the seventh Olympic gold of her career on Saturday in a vault final that left little doubt that even at 27 she remains in a class by herself, she played coy when asked if the event marked the final time she would ever explode off the springboard in competition.
While Biles allowed she was officially retiring her eponymous Yurchenko double pike vault because “I kind of nailed that one” at the Paris Olympics, she didn’t rule out a return to the Games when they move to Los Angeles in 2028.
“Never say never,” Biles said. “Next Olympics are at home. So you just never know. I am getting really old.”
At times, it's hard to tell.
Her sequined red leotard a blur in the air, Biles averaged 15.300 on her two vaults to claim a second gold in the event eight years after she triumphed in Rio de Janeiro.
Biles is coached by Cecile Canqueteau-Landi of the Georgia gymnastics team and her husband Laurent Landi. Cecile Canqueteau-Landi was named co-head coach of the Bulldogs, along with Ryan Roberts, in April. She began coaching Biles in 2017.
Three years ago in the run-up to Tokyo, Biles tinkered with the Yurchenko double pike, the hardest vault ever done by a woman, but she didn’t get a chance to throw it in the Olympics. She opted instead for an Amanar, which requires 2 1/2 twists.
That changed in the team final, when the “twisties” she’d been experiencing forced her to bail out of an Amanar and multiple event finals, forever altering the course of her career.
The experience left both Biles and Laurent Landi a little “traumatized,” as Biles put it. They both agreed there was no need to revisit the Amanar while preparing for Paris.
Yet rather than opt for something easier, they chose something even more difficult. Fitting for an athlete who needs to be challenged to stay engaged.
The Yurchenko double pike requires Biles to race down the runway before doing a roundoff/back handspring onto the table followed by two backward flips with her arms clasped behind her knees.
Over the last year, she has mastered it. It became the fifth element named after her in the sport's Code of Points when she did it at the 2023 world championships.
On the surface, she makes it look easy. Underneath, it actually makes her anxious. Power isn't the only thing the YDP requires. Control is important, too. Go in too hard and you might land on your back. Too little, and you come up short and crunch your ankles and just about everything else.
Laurent Landi pantomimed “calm down” before Biles saluted the judges, then watched her do what the woman who describes herself as “Simone Biles from Spring, Texas, who flips” does as well as any gymnast — male or female — has ever done.
She flew. She soared off the table and landed with a big bounce — a nod to the energy she generates — with her right foot on the out-of-bounds line.
The judges dinged her a tenth of a point for that. It hardly mattered.
Her score of 15.700 meant she merely needed to avoid disaster on her second vault to win. Instead, she almost stuck her Cheng, which requires a roundoff onto the springboard, and a half twist onto the block followed by 1 1/2 twists while doing a forward somersault. The 14.9 she received meant the fight for gold was over.
Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, who finished runner-up to Biles in the all-around final on Thursday, edged American Jade Carey for silver. Not that Carey was complaining. Three years after tripping during the vault final and finishing last, Carey achieved the “redemption” she was looking for when she pointed to an Olympic return.
“I wanted to prove to myself that I can do two vaults in the final,” Carey said. “(To) walk away with the medal is really special for me.”
Carey's Olympics are over. Biles' are not. She will have two more chances to boost her medal haul in Paris in the balance beam and floor exercise finals on Monday.
Biles has 10 career medals, tied for the third most by a female gymnast in Olympic history. Two more before she heads back to Texas and she would find herself all alone in second behind Larisa Latynina, who piled up 18 while competing for the Soviet Union in the 1950s and '60s.
Catching Latynina seems unlikely. Not that it matters much to the “Greatest of All Time.” She's gained something far more valuable anyway: silence.
Funny how the critics who pounced on her after Tokyo suddenly find themselves speechless after watching her win her third gold medal in Paris.
“They’re really quiet now,” she said with a touch of sarcasm, “so that’s strange.”
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