CELEBRITY
Simone Biles’ 2024 Olympics Rival Makes Huge Announcement
USA gymnast Simone Biles and Brazil gymnast Rebeca Andrade are arguably the two best in women’s gymnastics. On Thursday, they went head-to-head in the all-around individual final at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Biles came out with a gold medal and Andrade finished with the silver, but it was a close contest.
Biles finished with a total score of 59.131, and Andrade finished with 57.932, just a 1.199-point difference. The all-around final included the vault, uneven bars, balance beam, and floor exercise in that order.
According to Gymnastics Now, Andrade revealed that this very well could have been her last individual all-around.
“I think the all-around individual requires a lot from us,” Andrade said. “From my legs, my knees, the rest of my whole body, but the future belongs to God. It depends on how I feel in the future, how my body feels, how I feel mentally. I’ve worked a lot on the mental side of things. I wanted today to be a special competition, and it was. I think this will be my goodbye to the individual all-around.”
This silver medal marked Andrade’s second straight at the Olympics, winning the silver in the all-around final at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as well.
In the vault, Biles took the lead with a score of 15.766, while Andrade placed second after rotation one with a 15.100 score. But USA fans got nervous after the uneven bars, where Andrade went ahead of Biles after recording a 15.100 compared to Biles’ 13.733. Andrade finished rotation two with a total score of 29.766, and Biles had 29.499 total points.
Biles finished out with the balance beam (14.566) and the floor (15.066), while Andrade finished with 14.133 and 14.033, respectively. Biles retook the lead in rotation three and never looked back, recording the highest score in rotation four by a wide margin
Biles now has six total Olympic gold medals, including the two from this year. Andrade has one gold medal she earned in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. She also has two silver and a bronze. This could be the last year Andrade has to earn Olympic medals.