MINNEAPOLIS — Simone Biles has officially qualified for her third Olympic Games.
She will be joined in Paris this summer by Suni Lee, Jordan Childs, Jade Carey and Hesley Rivera.
The team was selected Sunday after two days of competition at the U.S. Olympic Gymnastics Trials in Minneapolis. It features four returning gymnasts from the Tokyo Olympics and makes it the oldest and most decorated U.S. women's Olympic gymnastics team in history.
At 27, Biles will be the oldest American female gymnast to compete in the Olympics in 72 years.
She tied with Li and Chiles for first place in the all-around and earned herself an automatic berth on the Paris team. The balance beam was treacherous, with all three skaters in the top three, including reigning world champion Biles, falling.
Biles said she was able to qualify for a third Olympic Games because she was in a “good mental state.”
Jocelyn Roberson and Lianne Wong were named as alternates. Wong was also an alternate at the Tokyo Olympics.
Starting with the Opening Ceremony on July 26 at 12pm ET, every moment and every medal from the Paris 2024 Olympics will be available to stream on Peacock.
Alicia Sacramone Quinn, USA Gymnastics' chief strategy officer, said the selection committee she chairs has “a close eye” on Rivera and sees her as a potential athlete to represent the United States at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
“It was a tough decision,” she said of selecting her team. “All of the players did their jobs. They did what they had to do.”
Despite some mistakes during Sunday's trial, Quinn said “it feels better here than it did in Paris.”
Li, the Tokyo Olympic all-around champion, won the uneven bars with a newly upgraded routine, perfecting the daring release moves of Nabiyeva and Bhardwaj.
She put in a spectacular performance despite battling two types of kidney disease.
“It's been a really hard, incredible journey,” she told NBC's Hoda Kotb. “I was so sick, it was hard to stay motivated, I was seeing everyone else getting better and I just couldn't get back into the gym, I was constantly lacking in confidence and there were so many times I wanted to quit and give up, but having people around me that encouraged me and supported me made me know this was what I wanted.”
A fall on the balance beam put her Olympic dream in jeopardy, but she sealed her fate on the floor exercise, dancing to Beyoncé and twirling like a pro.
Carey, the reigning Olympic gold medalist in floor exercise, anchored the preliminaries with a high-energy floor exercise in which she placed second to Biles in the floor exercise preliminaries.
His teammates will be hoping for revenge in Paris, but it means different things to each player.
“We're all really excited because all four of us want to make amends. [Tokyo Olympians] I’ll be back with Hesley,” Carey said.
Carey tripped on the runway during the vault final in Tokyo and missed out on the podium, while Biles withdrew from all finals except the balance beam at the Tokyo Olympics because she suffered from “twisties,” a condition that causes a person to lose spatial awareness in the air.
“This is definitely our revenge tour,” Biles said. “We all feel like we can do better, and our performance in Tokyo wasn't our best, the circumstances weren't our best, but we feel like we have the burden on us to go out there and prove that we are good athletes.”
She told Kotb, “I think we all have a little bit more to contribute. I think we're a lot more mature, I think our gymnastics are better, I think we're a little more confident in what we're doing, so we're excited.”
Lee said Sunday he was hoping to win the team gold medal that eluded him in Tokyo, where the Russian Olympic Committee won gold and the United States won silver.
Rivera, She turned 16 on June 4 and is the only teenager on a veteran-studded team, but her crucial performance on the balance beam proved she can handle the pressure of Olympic-level competition.
Despite watching Li struggle uncharacteristically on the balance beam, Rivera performed flawlessly and tied Biles for the two-day average on the event.
“I went in with the mindset that I had nothing to lose so I just tried my best and gave it my all, and that's what matters most,” she said.
Rivera said he was shocked when his name was called by the team.
“I was pretty surprised to hear my name, but I've been working for this my whole life,” she said.
Three top runners were injured ahead of Friday's competition, with world champions Skye Blakely, Ciriese Jones and Kayla DiCello missing from the Olympics. Blakely and DiCello both ruptured Achilles tendons. The extent of Jones' injury is unclear.
Biles led the overall standings on Friday by 2.5 points over Chiles, with Lee completing the top three.
Starting with the Opening Ceremony on July 26 at 12pm ET, every moment and every medal from the Paris 2024 Olympics will be available to stream on Peacock.
