Simone Biles at Paris Olympics 2024 live updates (2024)

Simone Biles did not let an injury scare slow her down on her long-awaited return to Olympic competition, posting a superb all-around total of 59.566 during Paris 2024 qualifying on Sunday in front of a star-studded crowd at the Bercy Arena.

After impressing on the balance beam Biles appeared to injure her left leg during warmups on the floor exercise. She was then tended to by doctors and left the floor briefly, before returning to have her ankle taped.

Not that she let that impact her performance. She scored a 14.6 with her floor routine before posting a sensational 15.3 on the vault, performing her breath-taking Yurchenko double pike vault. She concluded her performance by scoring 14.433 on the uneven bars as the United States took a commanding early lead in the team competition.

Plenty of celebrities were in attendance at the Bercy Arena to watch Biles. Tom Cruise, Lady Gaga and Ariana Grande all turned out, as did Anna Wintour, the long-serving editor of Vogue.

Simone Biles finished her first day of competition at the Paris Olympics at the conclusion of the second subdivision of qualifications, but one of her signature skills made an appearance in Bercy Arena a bit later in subdivision three thanks to Panamanian gymnast Hillary Heron.

Heron began her floor routine with a double back layout with a half twist, also known as the Biles I, and became the first gymnast other than Biles to compete one of the U.S. star's eponymous skills at an Olympic Games

Heron’s routine also featured a double back layout as her second pass, a back layout with 1.5 twists through to a full-twisting front layout and a big double back pike to cap her performance.

She shared an emotional embrace with her coach after and received a 13.033.

The Biles I on floor was Biles’ first ever eponymous skill, named for her in the Code of Points after she performed it at 2013 World Championships, The four-time Olympic champion now has five total skills named after her: two on floor, two vaults and a balance beam dismount.

She also submitted an original skill on the uneven bars, which will be added to the Code of Points under her name if she successfully executes it in Paris. Biles did not attempt her new bars element during qualifications, but U.S. women’s gymnastics technical lead Chellsie Memmel said the plan is for Biles to do the skill later in her Olympic schedule.

USA Gymnastics technical coach Chellsie Memmel has praised the “outstanding” Simone Biles for her performance today despite her struggles with “her lower leg”.

Biles briefly left the floor earlier with what she said was “discomfort” in her left leg but was able to return before posting an impressive all-around score on her return to Olympic action.

Memmel told reporters in Paris:

💬 “She is an outstanding gymnast and person — just, like, overall human — so what she was able to do with looking like she, you know, had some soreness or something in her lower leg. It is remarkable.

“Simone was great. She was outstanding. That’s how she trains. I mean, she comes out and she comes into the gym and she does her job. She did that (in training) and she just did it again here. She’s fun to watch.”

A reminder: each score is a sum of two separate components — the execution score (E-score) and the difficulty score (D-score).

The E-score begins at a 10.0 for each gymnast and decreases throughout the routine as judges spot deductions. The D-score has no maximum value. The harder a gymnast’s routine, the higher his or her difficulty score.

At the elite level, most D-scores fall in the 5-7 point range. An E-score around an 8.00 is good while an E-score of 9.00 or higher is excellent. Scores on vault tend to be higher than other events. A score that is 15.000 or higher is exceptional.

And so that Simone Biles score of 15.300 on the vault — which comes in qualification and while she has strapping on her lower leg — is very, very impressive.

The top 8 gymnasts on each apparatus qualify to the apparatus finals. But again, only two per nation can get through.

Here are the top three on each apparatus after the first two subdivisions:

Vault

1. Simone Biles (USA): 15.300
2. Jade Carey (USA): 14.433
3. Jordan Chiles (USA): 14.216

Uneven bars

1. Kaylia Nemour (Algeria): 15.600
2. Qiu Qiyuan (China): 15.066
3. Sunisa Lee (USA): 14.866

Balance beam

1. Zhou Yaqin (China): 14.866
2. Simone Biles (USA): 14.733
3. Sunisa Lee (USA): 14.033

Floor exercise

1. Simone Biles (USA): 14.600
2. Jordan Chiles (USA): 13.866
3. Sabrina Voinea (Romania): 13.800

The top 24 gymnasts qualify to the All-Around Final. But only two are allowed per nation, so Jordan Chiles will miss out, to give an example, because she is behind both Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee.

Here’s the top five:

1. Simone Biles (USA): 59.566
2. Sunisa Lee (USA): 56.132
3. Jordan Chiles (USA): 56.065
4. Kaylia Nemour (Algeria): 55.966
5. Manila Esposito (Italy): 55.898

1. United States of America: 172.296 (QUALIFIED)
2. Italy: 166.861
3. People’s Republic of China: 166.628
4. Great Britain and Northern Ireland: 160.830
5. Romania: 159.457

Hezly Rivera is first on the uneven bars, in the final rotation of this second subdivision of the day.

She scores a 13.900, which is quickly bettered by the 14.266 awarded to Jordan Chiles (pictured).

Simone Biles is next...

The United States are top of the team leaderboard with 128.731, ahead of both China and Italy.

Surprise, surprise: Simone Biles is top of all-around results in this subdivision.

She has the best individual scores in the vault (15.300) and floor (14.600). Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour is leading the way on the uneven bars (15.600) and Zhou Yaqin is beating Biles on the balance beam (14.866 to 14.733).

• USA: Uneven bars
• China: Floor exercise
• Italy: Balance beam
• Mixed: Vault

Simone Biles scores a comparatively modest 14.800 on her second vault. That gives her an overall score of 15.300.

As explained below, any score in artistic gymnastics above 15.000 is sensational.

Simone Biles, perhaps as a way to cope with injury frustration, joked before her team’s pass on the vault that “I’m going to need a wheelchair” after she was hurt while warming up for the floor exercise.

Biles crawled on the mat next to the runway toward the vault, joking about her mobility before deciding to change her intended vault for competition. “I’m going to do an easy layout,” she said.

She also checked in on Jade Carey, her American teammate who won gold in Tokyo for the floor routine but had an awful follow-up in the last rotation, keeping her from the finals for the apparatus.

It’s worth noting that it was on the vault where Biles got the “twisties” at the Tokyo Games in 2021, where she lost her sense of place in the air and ended up removing herself from competition.

Team USA have made a good start to the vault: Sunisa Lee scores a 14.133 which Jordan Chiles follows with a 14.333.

Jade Carey is up next, followed by Simone Biles.

• USA: Vault
• Italy: Uneven bars
• China: Balance beam
• Mixed: Floor

A reminder: each score is a sum of two separate components — the execution score (E-score) and the difficulty score (D-score).

The E-score begins at a 10.0 for each gymnast and decreases throughout the routine as judges spot deductions. The D-score has no maximum value. The harder a gymnast’s routine, the higher his or her difficulty score.

At the elite level, most D-scores fall in the 5-7 point range. An E-score around an 8.00 is good while an E-score of 9.00 or higher is excellent. Scores on vault tend to be higher than other events. A score that is 15.000 or higher is exceptional.

And so that Simone Biles score of 14.600 — which comes in qualification and while she has strapping on her lower leg — is very, very impressive.

Simone Biles briefly exited the competition floor inside Bercy Arena during the qualification round of the women's gymnastics competition following what appeared to be a lower leg injury.

She was warming up — a double back layout with a half twist — on floor exercise when she took a few steps out of the landing and then walked off the floor. Biles then sat in a chair off to the side of the floor while a team doctor and her coaches spoke to her.

She indicated a spot on her leg and said “As soon as I took off, I felt it.” She added, “It's right there on my calf. Right where I had that tear.”

Biles then exited the arena but returned to get her ankle taped. She hit her routine in the anchor spot of Team USA's floor lineup, earning a 14.600, though she was grimacing slightly on each landing. After her routine, she sat on the side of the podium to catch her breath and told her coach she was OK.