Simone Biles and Suni Lee competed against each other today at the Paris Olympics’ individual all-around gymnastics competition, and both ended up on the podium. Biles won the gold medal and Lee the bronze. Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade took the silver.
The Team USA gymnasts never stopped cheering each other on throughout their rotations, but the moment when they both learned they medaled was especially spectacular. The athletes embraced and ran out to the floor, carrying the American flag to celebrate their incredible feats.
Biles made history with her win, becoming the oldest all-around Olympic champion since 1952, per AP. She also now has the most gold medals of any U.S. Olympic gymnast, earning her sixth today.
Lee, meanwhile, has had an incredible Olympics, heightened by the fact that she suffered two kidney-related illnesses in 2023 that took her away from training. “That was probably the hardest couple of months,” Lee told ELLE.com ahead of the Games. “I didn’t know if I was going to be able to do it.”
Biles and Lee’s victories come after a video of them went viral earlier this week. After they and the rest of Team USA took first place in the women’s team event, they were caught on camera planning their gold medal TikToks. The final TikToks earned over 70 million views collectively:
During her interview with ELLE.com, Lee shared how Biles inspires and motivates her. “Simone is absolutely incredible, and somebody that I look up to every single time I go and compete against her, because the things that she can do are just unreal,” she said. “And it’s so inspiring, because it just makes me want to get better and better.”
Alyssa Bailey is the senior news and strategy editor at ELLE.com, where she oversees coverage of celebrities and royals (particularly Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton). She previously held positions at InStyle and Cosmopolitan. When she’s not working, she loves running around Central Park, making people take #ootd pics of her, and exploring New York City.