U.S. Olympic Trials: Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee headline U.S. team headed to Paris

USA Gymnastics put together its women’s team for the 2024 Summer Games on Sunday night, and one has to like its chances in Paris. The team, determined after the U.S. Olympic Trials this week at Target Center, features the Games’ past two all-around gold medalists.

Simone Biles and St. Paul’s Sunisa Lee — who won the all-around gold medals at the 2016 and 2020 Summer Games, respectively — finished 1-2 in the Trials all-around after the last day of competition on Sunday.

Biles won the automatic qualification by winning the all-around with 117.225 points. The other four athletes were chosen by a strategic selection committee that convened immediately after Sunday’s competition. She and Lee will be joined in Paris by Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey, their teammate at the 2020 Games, and Hezly Rivera.

The selection committee is tasked with choosing the team USA Gymnastics believes has the best chance of medaling at the Games. Carey earned Team USA’s only individual event gold medal in Tokyo, the floor exercise.

Lee, who attended South St. Paul High School before matriculating to Auburn, was the breakout star of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, where she won the all-around gold medal and bronze in the uneven bars to help the U.S. win the team silver.

Biles returns to the Games for the third time. In 2016 in Rio De Janeiro, she powered the team to gold by winning the all-around, vault and floor exercise. She also earned bronze in the beam.

But after winning bronze in the beam in Tokyo, where the games were held in 2021 because of the COVID pandemic, Biles withdrew from the final three individual events after being overwhelmed with anxiety.

Since then, Biles, 27, has proven she is still the world’s best gymnast, winning the all-around at the 2023 world championships and earning gold in all four events at the 2024 U.S. championships.

She was a lock to make the 2024 Olympic team, and maybe Lee was, too — although she had more to prove than Biles. Diagnosed with chronic kidney disease early in 2023, she withdrew from Auburn and didn’t start training again until January of this year.

Lee, 21, won a couple of balance beam golds in national competitions, and won silver in the beam and placed fourth in the all-around at the U.S. Championships in late May, but this week was her biggest test.

She received a standing ovation, the first in four days of competition at Target Center this week, after her first routine, the balance bars. Her score, 14.875, gave her the top combination on the bars for the Trials, 29.275.

But Lee’s next routine, the balance beam — the other of her specialties — was uncharacteristically rough. She fell on her mount, then nearly fell again after a pair of difficult backward somersaults. Her score of 12.825 was her lowest of the competition.

But she rallied — her scores in the beam, floor and vault were improvements on her scores from Friday’s competition — for an overall score of 111.675. Chiles’ performance on the floor exercise (14.100) pushed her past Rivera for third in the all-around.

Briefly

— A small handful of challengers were eliminated by injuries this week. Skye Blakely injured an Achilles’ tendon during practices on Wednesday, and Kayla DiCello injured an Achilles on the first event of Friday’s competition. Shilese Jones suffered a leg injury during warmups Friday and withdrew from the Trials after being evaluated on Saturday.

— The U.S. men’s team, chosen Saturday after its second day of the Trials, was introduced during an intermission between rotations. Noticeably missing was Minnesota’s Shane Wiskus, who finished third in the all-around but was made a traveling alternate.

.

Related Articles

Olympics |


Olympic Trials: U.S. women have experienced nucleus, but questions remain for gymnastics selection committee

Olympics |


St. Paul gymnast Sunisa Lee halfway to Paris, but Olympic trials open on sour note

Olympics |


Olympic Trials: The unbreakable spirit of St. Paul gymnast Suni Lee

Olympics |


U.S. Olympic Team Trials for gymnastics take place in Minneapolis later this month with Suni Lee

Olympics |


Biles wins U.S. gymnastics championship; Suni Lee finishes fourth in all-around

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Previous post Dane Mizutani: Suni Lee almost had to give up gymnastics. Now the St. Paul native is headed back to the Olympics.
Next post Saltmarble Hits 1-Day Trading Volume of $50,463.36 (SML)