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…
