Biles, Chiles to lead U.S. gymnastics team in Olympic final (2024)

Simone Biles and Jordan Chiles will lead the United States in Tuesday’s women’s gymnastics team final as both are slated to compete in all four events in a somewhat unexpected lineup shuffling that also sees Sunisa Lee competing on floor exercise in place of reigning Olympic champion Jade Carey.

Sixteen-year-old Hezly Rivera, who showed signs of nerves during her Olympic debut on the balance beam in the team’s opening rotation of qualifications Sunday, will not perform in any events in the team final. Though she worked through multiple wobbles to avoid a fall, Rivera received a 12.633 on beam, a score the Americans ultimately dropped from their team’s total in qualifications. The team final uses a “three up, three count” format in which three athletes compete on each apparatus and all three scores count, eliminating any error margin.

Set in stone, ready to bring it home. ⤵️

The U.S. Women will compete for a spot on the medal podium during tomorrow’s Team Final!

VT ➡️ Chiles, Carey, Biles
UB ➡️ Chiles, Biles, Lee
BB ➡️ Chiles, Lee, Biles
FX ➡️ Lee, Chiles, Biles pic.twitter.com/7Z7hdGnNhq

— USA Gymnastics (@USAGym) July 29, 2024

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Before Sunday’s qualifications, there was talk from U.S. women’s gymnastics technical lead Chellsie Memmel that Biles may not compete in all events during the team final to allow her a bit of rest amid a busy Olympic schedule that also includes four individual finals (all-around, vault, beam and floor). Biles also sustained a calf injury during qualifications that her coach Cecile Landi said was a re-aggravation of a previous tweak, but she showed no signs of it slowing her down Sunday.

Biles’ weakest event, uneven bars, was the likely place she would sit out during the team final, but her 14.433 score from qualifications was significantly higher than Rivera’s 13.900. The gap in those scores led to the U.S. opting to put Biles up on the bars in the team final over Rivera.

An uncharacteristic error from Carey on floor during qualifications resulted in a score of 10.633, which was also dropped. On her final tumbling pass, Carey attempted to complete a double back tuck, but she bailed out of the double flip and only completed one rotation before opening out of the tucked position. She bounced backward out of the unexpected landing and fell on her backside out of bounds. The error drastically lowered her score and knocked her out of contention for the individual floor final.

Carey toldOlympics.com later that she had been battling an illness that sapped her strength. Her father Brian, who is also her coach, has also been dealing with an illness that forced him to miss the team’s podium training session Thursday. During an appearance on “Today” on Monday, Carey’s mother Danielle Greenberg said her daughter was “doing much better.”

Carey is in the vault lineup for Team USA after hitting two solid vaults in qualifications and earning a spot in the individual event final, where she hopes to win a medal after a stumble during her run-up to the vault table during the Tokyo Olympics cost her a spot on the podium. She is favored to win bronze in the event behind Biles and Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade.

Entering these Games, Brazil was considered the Americans’ biggest competition because of Andrade and the seasoned squad she leads, but Italy was the team that landed in second place after the conclusion of five subdivisions in qualifications. The U.S. posted a huge 172.296 to sail into the team final with Italy over five points behind. Brazil advanced to the final in fourth with a 166.499 behind China’s 166.628.

All scores from qualifications are erased, and each team starts fresh in the final. The U.S. will begin the competition on vault along with Italy and rotate through the meet in Olympic order to end on floor. All five athletes on each team that finishes on the podium will receive a medal.

Required reading

• When does gymnastics start at the 2024 Paris Olympics? Schedule, contenders and how to watch
• Team USA’s Olympics gymnastics leotards revealed: How the eight designs for Paris came to be
• The story in Simone Biles’ new floor routine: The ‘big boss of gymnastics’ is back

(Photo: Naomi Baker / Getty Images)