The Final Five are crushing it.
RIO DE JANEIRO -- The setup of a gymnastics arena is such that you can watch athletes compete in multiple events simultaneously. Hey, look, Netherlands is on the vault! There's a gymnast from Trinidad and Tobago on the balance beam!
But when Simone Biles closed out Team USA's gold-medal performance in the team all-around final with a characteristically brilliant floor exercise routine, there was no need to watch anybody else. The crowd's eyes were all on her. The photographers were all snapping her, the arena's cameras put her on the Jumbotron. Even the other gymnasts who weren't competing watched Biles, clapping when she completed her routine. They, more than anybody, understand the preposterousness of what Biles does, and although many of them are very good, they took the opportunity to witness greatness.
This women's gymnastics team has an aura. They are the best in the world, they know they are the best in the world, and everybody else knows they are the best in the world. They demand our eyes and our awe, and you should give both to them.
I don't like exaggerating, but there is no way to discuss these American women without superlatives. They are the best team in the world, they are quite probably the best team of all time. They are so much better than the competition that it's not really a competition. The gap between America and the Russian team that won silver was 8.201 points. The gap between that Russian team and the Brazilian team that finished dead last was 4.601 points.
There are six gold medal events at the Olympics in women's gymnastics. Biles is the best on the floor exercise, the best on the vault, and the best on the balance beam. She had the top score on each in qualifications and again in the finals. And when you're the best on three different apparatuses, you're probably going to win the individual all-around gold.
If Biles doesn't win one of those events, it's probable that the reason is that Aly Raisman or Laurie Hernandez did. Madison Kocian is the best on the uneven bars, and only Gabby Douglas is close.
Nobody has ever won all six gold medals in one Olympics. Team USA is good enough to do that. It is comprised of the best competitors in each event and the second-best competitors in each event. They are historically brilliant.
Biles is impossibly perfect. She does things nobody else attempts - literally, she has a move named after her because she is the only person who can do it -- and she does it flawlessly. Hypothetically, somebody may discover more difficult things to do in gymnastics. But until that day, Biles is our most perfect gymnast.
One woman is not supposed to be able to win gold medals in a bunch of different apparatuses. These disciplines require such a diverse range of physical talents. There are specialists in gymnastics, who focus all their talent on excelling in one discipline or technique. Biles is better than these specialists at their chosen events. She is winning the three-point competition and the dunk contest on the same night. She's the team's best quarterback and best wide receiver and kicker, too.
But the team was able to obliterate the world thanks to its depth. Douglas and Raisman have pulled off the unthinkable feat of maintaining elite all-around status for two Olympic cycles. Neither is as good as Biles right now - nobody is, and nobody ever has been - but they're locked in a battle to be the second best in the world.
Hernandez isn't far off, and she's only 16. And the team brought Kocian to kill it on the uneven bars, and she did, recording the highest score anybody has gotten on them in Rio.
They call these athletes girls, and to be fair, they're teenagers. But don't let that make you think these women are not some of the world's greatest athletes. They possess a combination of power, coordination, and flexibility that nobody in the history of the human race has ever possessed. They're young because the adult human body isn't supposed to do the things they do. We age, and we become less flexible.
The Americans have won team gold, their greatest accomplishment, but their run in Rio is not done. Watch them with awe.
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