PARIS — The question Simone Biles hates most, the one about what’s next, and more specifically Los Angeles in 2028, is essentially the riddle facing USA Gymnastics for the next four years. “The Golden Girls,” as the U.S. team in Paris this past week dubbed themselves, were lightning in a bottle, borne out of opportunity yet coalesced into greatness.
Odds are, if the trials had gone to plan, the Tokyo redemption tour wouldn’t have happened, at least not as wholly as it did. Were there such things as betting odds on gymnastics, other women — Shilese Jones, Skye Blakely, Leanne Wong, Kayla DiCello — would have been tagged the favorites ahead of Jade Carey, Suni Lee and Jordan Chiles.
But now what? The very thing that made them golden now turns the future into a question mark. In the real world, Biles (27 years old), Carey (24), Chiles (23) and Lee (21) are just getting started. By gymnastics standards, they are set for AARP. They have entirely and necessarily changed the conversation about their sport; you do not need to age out when your age stops ending with the word “teen.”
Once, Jones, now 22, might have thought her Olympic dream died when she tore her ACL at trials; now, when she says she’s coming back, she has a path to follow.
“If you’re smart about…
