Simone Biles makes all-around history with Suni Lee right behind her

Eight years after she won Gold at the Rio Games in 2016, Simone Biles did it again on Thursday night with two of her strongest routines: her spellbinding balance beam  followed by a powerhouse floor exercise stunner that brought down the house. With two all-around golds, Biles is the first to accomplish the feat since Vera Caslavska did it in 1964 and 1968. She is the first to do so non-consecutively and the only American.

At age 27 she is also the oldest all-around champion since 1952, when 30-year-old Soviet Maria Gorokhovskaya won the Helsinki Games Gold.

Lee, who was the surprise all-around Gold medalist at the 2021 Games, brought the arena to a standstill with her flawless floor routine that saw her brilliantly stick the landing on all her incredible tumbling routines. In fact, she defined “stick the landing” in her sequence. She also defined excellence.

"I didn’t think that I could, but it is taken a lot," Lee said via NBC, referring to the two kidney diseases she’d battled, which almost held her back from competing. "I’m so grateful that I had my coaches and, you know, having Simone here today definitely helped me a lot because we were both freaking out."

Simone Biles stuck the landing and then some for Team USA

Lee’s resiliency to get back to the Games was a remarkable one, and one of the most incredible stories from this year’s competition.

The race between the top three gymnasts was extremely tight, with Brazilian powerhouse Rebeca Andrade achieving her second Silver medal, in back-to-back Olympics. All of their performances were on a completely different level.

“I don’t want to compete with Rebeca no more. I’m tired,” Biles said, according to CNN. “She’s way too close. I’ve never had an athlete that close, so it definitely put me on my toes, and it brought up the best athlete in myself, so I’m excited and proud to compete with her but … it was uncomfortable, guys. I was stressing.”

Biles began the night executing the Yurchenko double pike vault—an unbelievably complex feat—now known as the Biles II after she landed it in international competition last year, the first woman to do so. Although she ended with a big step, the difficulty level was so high that the American gymnast still achieved a score of 15.7666 to secure the top position after the first exercise of the night.

Biles stumbled, however, on the uneven bars where a mistake that caused her knees to bend and break formation seemed to put her campaign for gold in jeopardy and slightly opened the door for Brazil’s Andrade. However, Biles last two routines pushed all doubt aside, with her floor exercise score of 15.066 securing her sixth and gold medal, adding to her total medal count of nine.

She now owns the most Olympic medals among American gymnasts. And there may be more to come. The individual competitions will take place on Saturday. Biles will be competing in the vault, balance beam and floor exercises. She has an excellent chance of collecting more Olympic hardware in any of her competing categories. Biles is the current reigning champion in floor and beam.

The 2024 Olympics also serve as a redemption for the disappointment of the 2021 Games, when Biles had to withdraw from the all-around due to a condition of the 'twisties'—where she couldn’t tell where she was in the air—and announced later that she was focusing on her mental health.

This time around there was no question of her confidence and will to win.