Watch Simone Biles’ Jaw-Dropping First Night Performance At The 2024 Olympics

Sunday saw the first day of action for the women’s gymnastics competition, which meant arguably the biggest name on all of Team USA was in action in Simone Biles. The greatest gymnast of all time arrived in Paris looking to reassert herself on the Olympics stage after her well-documented bout with the twisties while in Tokyo that limited her to just competing in some of the team competition and on beam, and on Sunday she did just that with a phenomenal showing despite an injury scare.

Biles began her night on beam, where she delivered a sensational performance that set the tone for an incredible night for both Biles and the American women with a high score of 14.733.

Her next apparatus was floor exercise, but disaster nearly struck as she hobbled off the floor after her warmup with a calf issue that required her to get taped up and had her using a foam roller trying to keep it loose. She was clearly bothered by it, telling her teammates she’s going to need “a wheelchair”, but never blinked once it was time to continue competing. Her floor routine was, again, vintage Biles, posting the highest score again with a 14.600.

Biles then went over to the vault, where she did the most difficult vault in gymnastics — the Biles II — and nailed it (if anything over-rotating just a touch to force a hop), once again earning the highest score of the round with a ridiculous 15.800.

Her final event was the uneven bars, where she removed the unique skill from her routine she had submitted to the International Gymnastics Federation earlier in the week. She still did very well with the routine she performed, earning a more-than-solid score of 14.433, but it was not quite enough to qualify for the uneven bars individual competition, as she ended up ninth, with the top 8 qualifying.

Still, Biles leads the all-around competition (59.566) by almost two full points over Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade (57.700), and could up her score some if she works her new skill back into the uneven bars. She’ll also be the gold medal favorite in floor, vault, and beam, leading in all three events in the qualification round.

In the team competition, Team USA (172.296) finished well ahead of Italy (166.861) in the qualification round, as they had three of the four highest all-around scores with Suni Lee and Jordan Chiles also having a great night, while Jade Carey qualified for the vault individual final. What’s scary is there’s room to get better if Carey and Hezly Rivera can post higher scores on floor, beam, and bars, but all eyes will be on Biles’ pursuit of four more golds and whether her calf will allow her to be at her best to do so.