It’s time for my once-per-quadrennial burst of American Patriotism as the US Women’s Gymnastics Team gears up to win gold in Paris. And right on schedule, Beyonce has released the ugliest shirt anyone has ever seen:
We are so the same! She need to call me so we can set up a watch party…
Let’s talk about the team real quick, because for me, this is probably the most exciting team we’ve ever sent to the Olympics and the overall dynamics and backstories make for some excellent sports drama.
Hezly Rivera, 16
Key Results:
** 2023 Junior World Championship Team Silver Medal
** 2023 Junior World Championship Silver Medalist on Floor
** 2024 Olympic Trials — 1st on Balance Beam
In piecing together a team, the US needed a Beam specialist, and in stepped Hezly Rivera. She only just became eligible to compete on the Senior level, so her international experience isn’t on the same level as the veterans. For context, when Simone Biles won her first World Championship, Hezly was in kindergarten. There was much commentary being made that Hezly is now just a junior in high school, but memories seem to be short in this area: less than a generation ago, the vast majority of gymnasts were high school teenagers. It’s only recently that we’ve started to see women gymnasts stay with the sport into their 20s, so Hezly’s age shouldn’t be a hang up. More interesting is the gymternet’s reaction to her father — he’s not popular at all and some comments he made in support of an abusive gym coach seem to give the fans license to be more critical of Hezly than necessary. Hopefully, her parents are keeping her away from the internet and focused on the prize.
Jade Carey, 24
Key Medals:
**2017 World Championship Silver Medalist on Floor
**2017 World Championship Silver Medalist on Vault
**2019 World Championship Team Gold Medal
**2019 World Championship Silver Medalist on Vault
**2020(2021) Olympic Gold Medalist on Floor
**2022 World Championship Bronze Medalist on Floor
**2022 World Championship Gold Medalist on Vault
**2022 World Championship Team Gold Medal
Jade Carey had a lot of medals, but not a lot of buzz going into Olympic Trials because there’s not a lot of air left in the room with Simone in attendance if your specialties are Vault and Floor. There wasn’t much for Jade to add to a team of Simone, Shilese, and Skye, and it was the injuries of the latter two that ultimately made space for Jade to return to the Olympics. Plus, there are a lot of fans who didn’t like the way Jade ultimately qualified for Tokyo. During Olympic Trials, she only competed for the All Around on Day One, opting to use the Apparatus World Cup series to qualify by way of placing high enough on Vault in a ten other competitions to give her the highest cumulative Vault score in the series. In Tokyo, she botched her vault, but ultimately grabbed Gold on Floor with Simone out of the race. With the second-highest difficulty score on Floor behind Simone, she may end up on the podium again in Paris.
Jordan Chiles, 23
Key Medals:
** 2020(2021) Olympic Team Silver Medal
** 2022 World Championship Silver Medalist on Vault
** 2022 World Championship Silver Medalist on Floor
The resident hype-woman of Women’s Gymnastics, Jordan Chiles seemed to fly under the radar for most of the competitions running up to Olympic Trials. Even though she regularly finishes in the top 3 in the all-around standings, there were a lot of people who left Jordan off of their final roster because the events where she excels (Floor and Vault) are already covered by even stronger competitors (Jade, Simone, and Jocelyn). In a clutch, having an all-arounder in your back pocket can really come in handy. In the Tokyo Olympics, Jordan was tapped to compete on Vault and Floor for Team USA, but when Simone had to pull out, Jordan was thrown in on Uneven Bars and Beam. Even though she hadn’t warmed on on either apparatus, she hit both of those routines, helping the US win Silver.
Simone Biles, 27
Key Medals:
** All of the medals, multiple times.
The pressure!!! If I had to bow out in the middle of the Olympics and have an entire country telling me I was lazy, afraid of losing, and an otherwise terrible person, you would never see my face in a gym ever again. And that’s not really an exaggeration. People who do not watch women’s gymnastics were all too happy to hop onto the dogpile to give their two cents about what the most dominant athlete in the world should have done in order to risk death and give the US some more gold medals. Simone has managed to take it in stride while not only prioritizing her own mental health but also advocating for others as well. Her casual comments during post-meet after the trials about seeing her therapist once a week as one of the key pillars of her training is the kind of normalization for mental health care that we need in sport and elsewhere. Simone looks healthy and happy and I’m always rooting for her!
Also, at 27 years old, Simone is serving as inspiration for a new kind of gymnast shaking off decades of advisement from coaches that sends these athletes into retirement in their early 20s. If Simone wins the all-around in Paris, this could really change the game for a lot of women who may re-think their retirement plans. Some age-related trivia to note:
— 1972 was the last time a woman over 20 won the Olympic All Around.
— 1960 was the last time a woman over 25 won the Olympic All Around.
— 1952 was the last time a woman older than Simone won the Olympic All Around.
Also, very few athletes have managed to win the Olympic All Around twice, but of the ones who have, they all did it at back-to-back Olympics. For Simone to be at her peak across three Olympics is virtually unheard of. When Simone is competing for the All Around, no one has beaten her since 2013. That is an absolutely unreal level of longevity in peak performance.
Suni Lee, 21
sidenote — this is my favorite leo of all time. She came out to US Championships with this fit on and the bold red lip and I was like SIS IS READY TO COMPETE!
Key Medals:
**2019 World Championship Team Gold Medal
**2019 World Championship Silver Medalist on Floor
**2019 World Championship Bronze Medalist on Uneven Bars
**2020(2021) Olympic Team Silver Medal
**2020(2021) Olympic All Around Gold Medal
**2020(2021) Olympic Bronze Medalists on Uneven Bars
Suni Lee has been through it! But please watch this Uneven Bars performance from last night. It’s the first time she’s hit it since getting back in the gym, and the crowd definitely feels how important it is:
If she can clean that up and hit it in Paris, she’s getting a medal. There are only one or two other routines that can touch it.
Suni is always my dark horse underdog because she really hasn’t ever put up a consistent season from beginning to end — she’s always recovering from an injury or personal tragedy.
**In 2019, she suffered a hairline fracture in her tibia. While still recovering, her father fell from a ladder a few days before her first US Championships and has been paralyzed from the waist down ever since.
**In 2020, her aunt and uncle died from COVID, and after the gyms re-opened, she injured her ankle which took her out for another two months.
**In 2021, she was pepper-sprayed in an anti-Asian attack while she was in LA for Dancing with the Stars.
**In 2023, she was diagnosed with a kidney condition that took her out of the gym for over six months as doctors tried to find ways to control the swelling across her entire body. Her diet during and post recovery is so strict, she currently buys an air fryer in every city where she’s competing to make sure she can cook her own food.
All of that is part of the reason her only international All Around medal is a the biggest one — the Gold at the Olympics — because that’s the only time all the pieces came together at precisely the right time. However! Health and personal life be damned, Suni managed to peak at precisely the right time during the last Olympiad to not only post a higher all-around score than Simone on Day 2 of trials (no one had ever done that before), but she went on to win the Gold in Tokyo as the best in the world after Simone pulled out. And it looks like she may be peaking at the right time this go round as well, coming in second at trials last night behind Simone.
The notable absence of Suni’s parents from the the stands over the weekend had the gymternet whispering about her strained relationship with her parents due to her father’s requests for money after Suni won the All Around and their disapproval of her interracial relationship. Nothing ever seems to move smoothly for Suni, but her cool demeanor under pressure and her remarkable perseverance in the face of struggle means she can handle just about anything at this point. No one is rooting harder for her than I am and I hope she can stay in good health and good spirits to push her up onto the podium right next to Simone.
Some additional trivia about the women’s team:
1996 was the last time the US sent three of the same women to the Olympics again: Kerri Strug, Dominique Dawes, and Shannon Miller were on the 1992 team that won bronze in Barcelona and the 1996 team that won gold in Atlanta. It should be noted that the 1992 team had 6 members and the 1996 team had 7. The 2024 team only has five, so that’s a huge percentage of returning gymnasts. Additionally, if you add Jade Carey, who was in Tokyo as an event specialist and is going to Paris as part of the team as well, that’s four out of five. Incredible!
20.6 was the average age of the women’s gymnastics medal winners in Tokyo — that’s higher than it has been since 1968. The average age of the US team this year is 22.2 with four of the team members being 21 or older.
Tokyo was the first time since 1952 where every member was over 18.
Winning the gold in 2016, Simone was already the oldest all-around winner since 1988: Simone was 19 years, 144 days and Yelena Shushunova was 19 years, 148 days.
And just to end on Simone’s complete and utter dominance in the sport, Simone placed 5.55 points ahead of Suni at Olympic Trials. The distance between Suni in 2nd place and Kaliya Lincoln in 9th place was only 2.275 points.
Still the GOAT.
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