PARIS, France — Rebeca Andrade won’t be remembered as the woman who beat Simone Biles in her prime.
Silver — again — hardly seemed to her like a disappointment.
Andrade finished second behind the American superstar Thursday at the Paris Olympics after a tense women's all-around gymnastics finals that was settled by Biles' phenomenal floor routine on the last rotation.
Still an enviable status when you’re up against the most decorated athlete in the history of gymnastics?
The 25-year-old Brazilian surged past Biles midway through the all-around finals at raucous Bercy Arena and had the opportunity to produce the biggest upset of the Games so far after Biles botched a transition on uneven bars.
But Biles fought back. She turned in a great beam routine and was amazing on the floor exercise to turn things around as she claimed a second gold in the competition, eight years after her triumph in Rio.
Andrade had nothing to be ashamed of matching the silver she won behind USA's Sunisa Lee in 2021. Lee finished third behind Andrade on Thursday.
She was consistent on all four apparatuses and capped her evening with a beautiful floor exercise full of energy and elegance. She lost by 1.199 points. Biles had just been exceptional, and Andrade just slightly less extraordinary.
Biles and Andrade bear similarities. They are both super versatile, both extremely clean in their routines and both excel on vault and floor.
Andrade finished second to Biles in qualifying and was extremely close to her American friend in the team’s final, where she led Brazil to bronze for the country’s first ever medal in the competition.
Over the years, the rivals have often been close.
They both competed at their first Olympics at Rio in 2016, when Biles claimed her first all-around gold. And when Biles took a break from gymnastics to focus on her mental health, Andrade won the all-around title at the 2022 world championships.
While Biles’ issues in Tokyo were related to her psyche, Andrade has been struggling with serious physical injuries which threatened to end her career.
Andrade, who was born and raised in a favela outside Sao Paulo, suffered three ACL tears in 2015, 2017 and 2019. She was not sure she would be able to recover in time for the Tokyo Games. But the COVID-19 pandemic pushed the Summer Games back to 2021, and Andrade’s knee held up just fine.
There, she became the first Brazilian woman to win Olympic medals in artistic gymnastics; gold in the vault competition, and silver in the individual all-around. She is up to nine medals in world championships, including three golds.
Biles made a successful comeback last year to reclaim the all-around world title, but Andrade managed to deny her the vault title. In the Belgian city of Antwerp, their mutual respect and admiration was on display when Biles pretended to move an imaginary crown from her head to Andrade’s.
