The night Simone Biles was the center of gravity at the Olympics once again

PARIS — Many things happened Tuesday night at Bercy Arena, a pulsing 15,000-seat bowl of joy. There was the 2024 Olympics women’s team gymnastics finals. There were celebrity sightings. (Is that Spike Lee?) There was the production value of an Olympic Games that has, from beginning to present, been one long brilliant brush stroke.

There was all of that. Enough to fill an evening in Paris to the brim.

Except, then there was Simone Biles.

And anything that comes into contact with Biles’ orbit immediately seems to fall in line behind one impossibly large eclipse.

This is something one must see not only to believe, but to even remotely understand. All the voices with all the opinions about the woman who unquestionably stands as the greatest American gymnast in history, and as one of the greatest American Olympians ever, seem so especially small and insignificant and comically misguided when the scale of Biles’ presence is seen firsthand.

Tuesday in Paris was the ultimate — and perhaps final — tableau of that fact. Seeing Biles in a team competition is like seeing the Eiffel Tower. It stands alone, is all you see, but is surrounded by greatness.

Biles is competing later this week in three of four individual event finals, but Tuesday was very likely her final Olympic performance as part of the five-member team playing for a collective goal. As expected, she and the Americans clinically won team gold. And also, as expected, Biles was a 4-foot-8 centripetal force that moved the entire room with every step.

It’s a complicated dynamic, where one piece is bigger than the whole. But that’s Biles’ reality. One that teammates Jordan Chiles, Sunisa Lee, Jade Carey and Hezly Rivera all understand more than anyone. They knew what was coming Tuesday. One or two or three cameras trailing Biles from the moment she walked into the arena to the minute she exited.

But for the observer to see it in person? It’s an exercise in understanding the weight of greatness.

It was 6:31 p.m. local time when Biles walked onto the floor. Romanian Ana Barbosu was in the middle of her floor routine when the arena lifted off its moorings as Biles approached the end of the vault runway. The moment was eight years in the making and every soul in the building knew it. The poetic symmetry of Biles attempting the same event so tied to her withdrawal from the 2020 Tokyo Games was hard to miss. One would love to know how aware Barbosu was when the air changed in the arena as Biles sprinted down the runway.

Biles sat on one of the elevated floors shortly thereafter. Doing nothing. Just watching the competition. Legs dangling. A little bit removed, a little off by herself, likely going through her routine in her mind. But there in front of her? Two cameramen stood maybe 8 feet away. Shooting every breath and every blink. All night, one, usually two and sometimes three or four broadcast cameras were trained exclusively on Biles. Anyone else who appeared on television did so either incidentally or because she was actively competing on an apparatus.

Biles moved, cameras moved. Biles stood still, cameras stood still. At one point, as she sat on the ground, a cameraman stood next to her, holding a camera dangling by his hip, eye-level with Biles, with his other hand stuffed in his pocket.

When Biles went over to the team bench area to get sorted before her rotation on uneven bars, she was close to the photographers’ pen. A pack of bodies 40 or 50 deep crunched closer, as if in one elevator. Whatever pictures they shot were with forensic detail. Lenses were inches from her face. The rest of the U.S. team was a few feet away, completely unbothered.

Biles, who has spoken at length about her battles with all the attention heaped upon her since she was a teenager, and about her journey in learning to navigate nerves, and her overall mental health, is very obviously aware that her every move is on film. She’s also aware, of course, that her teammates aren’t. That’s the terrain for any GOAT, and instead of fighting it, she either ignores the lens or, every once in a while, breaks the fourth wall. Biles will look directly into the camera and offer a knowing grin or what feels like a private wink. It’s a nod to those out there who get it, a nod that they’re all in it together.

On Tuesday, Biles nailed a landing during Canadian Cassie Lee’s floor routine to a jazzed-up version of Pachelbel’s Canon. The building erupted as Biles blew a kiss into a camera lens that had been trained on her uninterrupted for the prior 45 minutes.

On the floor, Biles’ every routine Tuesday received a studied silence, and every landing received raucous approbation. The ones cheering the loudest were usually Biles’ teammates.

That’s probably the ultimate compliment. The attention Biles receives is unlike anything not only in gymnastics, but, you can make the case, in sports overall. It’s the hyper-attention on her performance, and her psyche, and her place in the pantheon, and her still being the greatest alive, and her station in life. To carry all that and still be a member of something resembling a team in a sport that’s inherently individual?

That’s what was maybe lost in all the attention in this latest gold — her fifth.

Biles came to these Olympics to satisfy herself. She has said so repeatedly. Put it right out there, put it all on the table. At 27, an age that essentially qualifies for social security in the world of elite gymnastics, these Olympics are her chance to compete for the right reasons, instead of satisfying others.

She could have come to Paris and existed on an island. Instead, she was in the middle.

After Tuesday night’s gold medal ceremony, Chiles revealed that she called a small meeting the prior night for a hard conversation. The implication was that she wanted to address the fact that everyone’s support for each other might not be as genuine or full-force as was being presented. Chiles wanted to talk to Lee about it, but, before doing so, tabbed Biles to be part of the conversation. In Chiles’ retelling of the story, it was understood that whatever Biles said in that room is what was heard.

This is what comes with being one of one.

When it comes to Simone Biles, it’s always worth remembering that all the attention isn’t given.

It’s been earned.

(Top photo of Simone Biles celebrating Tuesday’s win in the team final: Aytac Unal / Anadolu via Getty Images)