PARIS — Simone Biles is spoiling everyone.
The reaction from coach Cecile Landi and Jess Graba, Suni Lee’s coach? You should have seen the ones she did in the training gym beforehand.
“I feel bad because it kind of feels normal now. It’s not right, because it’s not normal,” Graba said. “Someday you’ll back and go, ‘I stood there for that.’”
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This is Biles’ third Olympics, and she is better now than she’s ever been. That’s quite the statement, given she won four gold medals at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, is a 23-time world champion and hasn’t lost an all-around competition in more than a decade.
It’s not even a question, however, and if you are a gymnastics fan, or just a fan of superior athletic performances, appreciate this moment now.
There are a few singular athletes, men and women whose dominance in their prime was both amazing and mind-boggling. Michael Jordan was one. Serena Williams another. Michael Phelps, of course, and Tiger Woods. You have to include Biles in that category, too.
What she’s doing is so insanely difficult, yet Biles makes it look like child’s play for the ease with which she does it. It isn’t normal, as Graba said. But she has everyone so conditioned to her level of excellence that it takes something like that vault Thursday — or watching her do it while so many others around her were flailing and falling — to remind us what a privilege it is to watch her.
“She’s getting more and more comfortable with it,” Landi said, referring to the vault, also known as the Biles II. “But I don’t see it like that every day.”
Making it even more special is that all of this is a bonus.
After Biles got “the twisties” at the Tokyo Olympics, she wasn’t sure if she’d do gymnastics again. She took 18 months off and, even when she came back, refused to look beyond her next competition. Of course the Olympics were the ultimate goal, but the expectations and hype were part of what sent her sideways in Tokyo and she wasn’t going down that road again.
Though Biles is in a good place now — she is open about prioritizing both her weekly therapy sessions and her boundaries — there’s always the worry something could trigger a setback. The Olympics, and the team competition specifically, are potential landmines, given Biles had to withdraw one event into the team final in Tokyo.
But she’s having as much fun now as we all are watching her.
Rather than looking drawn and burdened, as she did three years ago, Biles was smiling and laughing with her teammates Thursday. She exchanged enthusiastic high-fives with Laurent Landi, Cecile Landi’s husband and coach, after both the Yurchenko double pike and her uneven bars routine.
“We’re all breathing a little bit better right now, I’m not going to lie,” Cecile Landi said.
Biles isn’t being made to feel as if she has to carry this team, either. With the exception of Hezly Rivera, who is only 16, every member of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team is a gold medalist at either the world championships or Olympics. Yes, Biles’ scores give the Americans a heck of a cushion. But Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey can hold their own, too, taking a massive burden off Biles’ shoulders.
“It’s just peace of mind that they all have done this before,” Landi said.
No matter how many times Biles does this, it never gets old for the people who are watching. Or it shouldn’t. You’re seeing greatness in real time. Appreciate it.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.
