The Paris Olympics is expected to belong to Simone Biles.
But if there’s one person who could spoil the party for the American gymnast, it’s Brazilian phenom Rebeca Andrade.
Andrade, 25, became a household name in Brazil after she won two medals at the Tokyo Olympic Games.
At the coming Paris Olympics, Andrade and Biles are expected to face off for gold in the all-around, vault and floor finals. While they have competed against each other before, Paris is set to be the first Olympic showdown with both of them at peak form.
Andrade has been teasing a new vault that has never been performed by a female gymnast, a triple-twisting Yurchenko. If she completes it in Paris, it will bear her name in the Code of Points and help close her difficulty gap with Biles.
Andrade and Biles came of age on the sport’s biggest stage concurrently, both of them making their Olympic debuts in 2016 at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
They achieved different results there, with Andrade failing to medal and Biles winning four golds and a bronze, but they have grown increasingly well-matched in the past eight years.
Andrade was launched onto the international scene in front of a home crowd when she qualified in third place for the 2016 Olympic all-around final, ahead of Russian gymnastics icon Aliya Mustafina.
She struggled in the final and finished 11th, but her potential for Olympic greatness was clear.
Biles, then 19, won the all-around gold medal in Rio — a coronation of sorts as she was already stirring “GOAT” talk after having won three consecutive world all-around titles.
Andrade’s time was still to come.
Her ascent was hampered periodically by a series of injuries. Andrade suffered three ACL tears (2015, 2017, 2019) that kept her out of international competitions and threatened to end her career.
Brazil failed to qualify a full team for the Tokyo Olympics, but Andrade benefited from the postponement of the Games due to the Covid pandemic and healed from her third ACL operation in time to punch her ticket as an individual competitor.
When she landed in Japan, she seemed like an entirely new athlete, with an unexpected ace up her sleeve that could rival the very best.
In the podium training ahead of Olympic competition, Andrade shocked the gymnastics community by unveiling one of the hardest vaults in women’s gymnastics, the Cheng. Comprised of a round-off entry with a half-turn onto the vaulting table, followed by a twist and a half, the Cheng is performed by only a handful of gymnasts in the world, including Biles. The daring move helped Andrade clinch the Olympic gold medal on vault after Biles withdrew because of the “twisties.”
She had been training the upgrade in secret, aiming to surprise her competition, including Biles, with her high degree of difficulty.
With Biles out of the Tokyo all-around final, Andrade won the silver medal behind Suni Lee after she stepped out of bounds twice on the final event, eliminating her narrow lead.
In the qualification round, Biles beat Andrade by less than four-tenths, with Lee rounding out the top three.
At the 2022 world championships in Liverpool, England, Andrade became the first South American world all-around champion, beating U.S. gymnast Shilese Jones.
When Biles returned to elite gymnastics last year, the matchup fans anticipated in Tokyo finally manifested.
Biles reclaimed her world titles in the all-around, the beam and the floor. She beat Andrade in the all-around by 1.633 points, a margin worth slightly more than a fall. Biles’ starting value was about 1.5 points higher than Andrade’s, so the difference in their final scores was due almost entirely to Biles’ advantage in terms of difficulty.
After Biles sat down on her eponymous Biles II vault in the event final, Andrade won the vault title. To challenge Biles for gold in Paris, Andrade will aim to increase her difficulty in the all-around and start within a one-fall margin of Biles.
The U.S. women maintain a comfortable advantage over the Brazilians in terms of difficulty, but the program is on the rise after Andrade led her team to its first world medal in the sport last year.
Brazil won the team silver medal behind the Americans and ahead of France.
With the Russian team, the reigning Olympic champions, out of Paris contention because of the war in Ukraine, Brazil is eyeing its first Olympic team medal. If the U.S. team has some uncharacteristic errors in Paris, Brazil could be in the mix for the team gold.
China, Italy and France are also expected to be in the Paris team medal picture.
Despite their rivalry on the competition floor, Andrade has expressed her admiration for Biles.
“It’s about doing my best,” Andrade told AFP. “And I hope she Biles does, too, that she does her best, because it’s an honor to be able to compete alongside her.”
