Suni Lee, U.S. women win team gold medal in gymnastics at the Paris Olympics

After winning the Olympic gold medal in the women’s team event at the Paris Games on Tuesday, St. Paul’s Suni Lee turned to the world’s most decorated gymnast, Simone Biles, and started planning what TikToks they could film with their new medals. Lee clapped gleefully as she shared her idea with Biles.

They cranked out the video quickly: a short clip of the team smiling, holding their medals and lip-syncing to the words: “Everybody wanted to know what I would do if I didn’t win. I guess we’ll never know.”

But, despite the TikTok’s catchphrase, Lee, Biles and the rest of the U.S. team did know the feeling of not winning team gold.

At the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, the U.S. women’s gymnastics team was two-time defending champion and heavy favorites to top the podium again. But Biles withdrew from the team competition with the twisties, a phenomenon when a gymnast’s mind and body feel disconnected. Missing the 2016 all-around individual gold medalist, the U.S. placed second behind the Russian Olympic Committee.

On Tuesday, the U.S. women were champions again. The path back to a team gold was what Biles, now competing at her third Olympics, called a “redemption tour” at the U.S. team trials in Minneapolis in June.

“We had so many expectations on us this time,” Lee said in a news conference in Paris. “But I think we did exactly what we were supposed to. We went out there and we had fun with it.”

The redemption feels especially sweet since all four of the gymnasts who competed during the team final in Paris — Biles, Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey — represented the U.S. in Tokyo. Even with the addition of 16-year-old Hezly Rivera, this year’s Olympic team was the oldest the women’s program has fielded since 1952, led by the 27-year-old Biles.

The trio of Chiles, Biles and Lee competed on beam, floor and uneven bars, while Lee swapped with Carey for vault. Lee, 21, had the team’s highest scores on bars (14.566) and beam (14.600).

The U.S. leapt out to an early lead after the first rotation on vault and stayed atop the standings through all four events.

By the time Biles stepped onto the mat to perform the meet’s final floor routine, she could have scored a 9.000 and the U.S. would have still won gold. But she didn’t, instead posting the competition’s best floor score, 14.666.

“The greatest of all greats,” Chiles called Biles, now the most decorated U.S. gymnast in Olympics history with eight medals.

“I’ve definitely seen her develop a lot of things within herself that maybe she wasn’t able to see then [in Tokyo], but now she’s able to see,” Chiles said. “I couldn’t be more proud to witness that, and she’s a very strong human being mentally, physically.”

With its silver-medal finish, Italy took home its first Olympic team gymnastics medal in 96 years, finishing 5.802 points off the U.S. lead. Brazil was another 0.997 points back in third, winning its first Olympic team medal. Tokyo gold medalist Russia did not compete at this Olympics under restrictions of the International Olympic Committee after the nation’s invasion of Ukraine.

After team trials in June, Lee admitted that, a year ago, she did not think she would be back at another Olympics, battling two kidney diseases while training and competing at Auburn University. Both Lee and Biles have been outspoken about the key role that therapy played in their journeys to Paris, and their journeys back to the top of the podium.

Biles said she had a therapy session Tuesday morning, and she told her therapist she was “feeling calm and ready.” After she finished vault — the event that spurred her Tokyo twisties — “I was relieved,” Biles said. No flashbacks, she told herself. “As soon as I landed, I thought, ‘Oh yeah, we’re definitely going to do this.’ ”

Lee and Biles, the last two Olympic all-around champions, will compete in the individual all-around final on Thursday. Individual event finals will take place Saturday through Monday. Lee will participate in the balance beam and uneven bars finals.

The Star Tribune did not send the writer of this article to the event. This was written using a broadcast, interviews and other material.