To the Bercy Arena for maybe, possibly the last Olympic acts of the great Simone Biles. Her Olympics had already paid out everything she was after, with three gold medals banked before the final day and all memories of Tokyo scrubbed and scoured clean. Two more were on offer here, for all we knew the last two she’ll ever compete for.
Biles doesn’t know if she’ll be still on the go by the time Los Angeles comes around. She ruled nothing in our out any time she was asked this week, except to say she will be so old when it comes around. She’ll be 31 by then – but the number probably wasn’t what she was getting at.
Her 27 isn’t like your 27. She came second in the floor exercise here, in the process bringing her Olympic medal tally to 11 – seven gold, two silver, two bronze. Maybe she’ll decide she wants to add to it on American soil four years from now or maybe she’ll find there are no more worlds to conquer. Either way, the crowds packed out every inch of the gymnastics venue to bear witness.
Biles long ago ceased to be just a person in the world. She exists instead at a level of ur-fame, a heightened reality beyond rational understanding for the rest of us. She has posted five tweets in the past week since competition started. Combined views – coming up on 200 million. You’re talking a level of celebrity attained by very few sportspeople in history. And even fewer sportswomen.
You only had to stroll around the Bercy Arena to see it. Look, there’s Zinedine Zidane. Look, there’s Tom Brady. Look, there’s a cluster of the Dutch rowing team plonked higher up in the stands, gold medals from last week weighing them down. Look, there’s Olympian upon Olympian, their own event finished, this ticket stashed away for themselves as a post-competition treat.
Look at everyone craning, swan-necking, trying to catch a piece of Biles before she goes. Are they gymnastics fans? Some of them, sure. But the nature of the Olympics means that far more of the audience were here for the occasion, the chance to pay homage to one of the great sporting figures while they still could.
A little too much homage, as it turned out. During the balance beam competition, portions of the crowd took it upon themselves to shush audience members who were shouting encouragement at Biles and the other gymnasts. Whether the shushing contributed to the unusually high number of falls – four of the eight finalists came off the beam during the final – nobody could say. But there was no doubt they found it distracting.
“Beam finals are always the most stressful,” said Biles, who was one of the fallers and ultimately finished fifth. “We usually have music or background noise, whatever that may be. Honestly, it’s a better environment when there’s noise going on because it feels most like practice. So today, you could hear some of the Android ringtones going off and whatever else there was. You had to try and stay in your zone.
“And then people started cheering and the shushing got louder – when it was they should have been shushed. It was really weird and awkward. We’ve asked several times if we could have some music for background noise. I’m not sure what happened there. None of us liked it. It was an odd beam final.”
Celebrity is such an unnatural state. The flavour of it that we generally tend to scoff at is grasping and needy, the low-level emptiness of pointless fame. Yet even that is more relatable than what someone like Biles carries with her through the world. Never off. Never normal. Always refracted through the public lens.
She came back out an hour later for the floor exercise. By now, the Paris 2024 volunteers who had spent the previous few hours bayoneting chancers out of the aisles had pretty much given it up as a hopeless task and were bunching in themselves to get a look. Biles sent a gasp through the crowd when falling over at the end of her last practice tumble. Her coach chatted to her from behind the plastic laminate of her accreditation. All was hush.
Finally, it was her time. As the gymnasts who had made it through to the most finals, she and Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade were going for their 17th routine of the week. Andrade had already nailed hers and gone into the lead, giving Biles something to aim at.
The greatest gymnast in history went through her routine, all power and height and speed. Too much, at times – she twice finished off her tumbles out of the rectangle, losing 0.3 marks each time. In the end those penalties cost her the gold and saw Andrade crowned. The Bercy Arena erupted regardless.
“Today has been absolutely wild,” Biles said afterwards. I have been competing here at the Olympics now for a week. I have been out on that floor so many times. So obviously exhaustion sets in. But we still had to go out and do a job today.
“I have accomplished way more than my wildest dreams. Not just at this Olympics but in this sport. I can’t be mad at my performances. A couple of years ago I didn’t think I would be back here at an Olympic Games, so competing and walking away with four medals, I’m not mad. I’m not very upset or anything about my performances. I’m actually very happy and proud. And even more excited that it’s over.”
She meant for now, this week, this Olympics. But we know that the future is a delicate thing. Everyone came here knowing they might not see her compete again. They went away giddy at getting to see her do it once.
