Simone Biles is back and she’s happy to let us know.
After earning a total score of 59.566 to lead all competitors during qualifying for the Paris Olympics, Biles posted a TikTok video celebrating her performance by rapping some of Monaleo’s “Don Who Leo.”
“Get out of there, Don Julio,” the rhyme begins. “Make a fool of yourself.”
‘Bitch, I called your fucking phone, this is how you treat me, huh?’
While some may not have liked the lyrics, many of Billes’ fans were just as excited as she was on Sunday.
“I love her so much lol,” wrote one excited fan.
Team USA’s Simone Biles competes in women’s gymnastics at the Bercy Arena
Biles posted a video on TikTok that shows her rapping some of the songs from Monaleo’s “Don Who Leo.”
Others thought Biles was showing off after drawing a celebrity crowd on Sunday that included Ariana Grande and Tom Cruise.
“She said, ‘I know all these celebrities came to see me, but I will always be 100% who I am and have fun and be the best,'” one post read. “Welcome to the Simone show. I love her. She’s always been the best in every way.”
Biles and the rest of the U.S. women’s gymnastics team took to the court at Bercy Arena on Sunday in leotards adorned with thousands of crystals, the kind designed to attract as much attention as possible.
Don’t mistake all that glamour for a lack of courage.
The most veteran team the Americans have ever taken to the Games has been through a lot over the years, from health issues to losses in their personal lives. Those experiences have prepared them for what may come, perhaps Biles more than anyone else.
So when the most decorated gymnast of all time felt a pull during her floor warm-up on Sunday, she didn’t panic. Her teammates didn’t either.
Biles briefly retreated to the back so coach Laurent Landi could essentially mummify her lower left leg, then returned and helped propel a team that looks as good as advertised.
With Biles — calf pain and all — earning top scores on vault and floor and reigning Olympic champion Sunisa Lee looking perhaps as good as ever on uneven bars, the United States posted a total of 172.296, doing little to dampen expectations that Tuesday night’s team final will be more of a coronation for a team that has called this trip to the Games part of its “Redemption Era.”
“They’re happy and relieved,” said U.S. coach Cecile Landi. “Day one, now we’ll move on to team finals, all-around finals and hopefully a couple of event finals.”
Biles has her ankle taped after competing on the uneven bars during the qualifying round.
Biles reaches during her routine on the uneven bars during Sunday’s qualifying round.
The result made it seem like business as usual. But that wasn’t the case for Biles, who Landi said suffered from a calf issue that had initially surfaced a couple of weeks ago. Biles thought she had it under control until she did warm-up exercises on the floor.
After a few anxious moments, there was Biles, putting together another floor routine filled with a kind of difficulty that no other gymnast in the world can match.
The same was true on the vault, where she went a little overboard on her signature Yurchenko double pike, proof that her calf was good enough to generate the kind of speed needed to perform perhaps the most impressive skill performed in the sport.
“What she was able to do, even though it looked like she was in some pain or something in her lower leg, is remarkable,” said Chellsie Memmel, co-director of the U.S. women’s program.
Yet it wasn’t just Biles — who is expected to be available for the rest of the meet and was feeling well enough later Sunday to post a video of herself lip-syncing to a rap song on her social media channels — who helped the U.S. find itself more than five points ahead of Italy and China in three of the five subdivisions.
Lee, who has spent much of the past 18 months battling multiple kidney problems that have caused her weight to balloon and limited her training, looked as fit as she did in Tokyo three years ago on the bars (her signature event) to finish second to Biles in the all-around.
Chiles, the 2021 silver medallist, erased the memory of a sometimes-struggling performance in Japan by finishing third behind her top-ranked teammates. The 23-year-old will miss the all-around final because of rules limiting countries to two athletes per competition, though she is likely to head into the floor exercise final and desperately wants the team gold Russia took in Tokyo.
Team USA’s Simone Biles competes on the floor exercise Sunday in Paris
Jade Carey, the 2020 Olympic floor exercise champion, likely secured a spot in the vault final as she battled an illness that may have contributed to multiple mistakes on the floor that cost her the chance to defend her gold medal.
Hezly Rivera, 16, the youngest member of the U.S. team by a considerable margin, had some visible nerves while on the beam and uneven bars in her first trip to the Games.
Teams compete with four athletes in each event during qualifying, with each team dropping its lowest score. That will change during the three-up, three-count final.
With the Russians out of the competition because of the war in Ukraine, the toughest competition appears to be Brazil, which is scheduled to compete later on Sunday. The Brazilians are led by 2022 world champion Rebeca Andrade, arguably the best gymnast in the world not named Biles over the past three years.
Italy and China were solid, particularly China’s Qui Qiyuan. The 17-year-old scored an impressive 15.066 on uneven bars that probably makes her the closest rival to Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour, whose 15.600 was the highest of the day in any event, outside of Biles’ 15.8 on vault.