Daily Edition – Day 5: Simone freakin’ Biles
From The GIST (hi@thegistsports.com)
Bonjour!
Can you get dehydrated from crying while watching Olympians achieve their dreams? Asking for a friend while gulping down today’s news.
Country | 🥇 | 🥈 | 🥉 | Total |
| 🇯🇵 Japan | 7 | 2 | 4 | 13 |
| 🇫🇷 France | 6 | 9 | 4 | 19 |
| 🇨🇳 People’s Republic of China | 6 | 6 | 2 | 14 |
| 🇺🇲 USA (6th) | 4 | 11 | 11 | 26 |
🏉 The U.S. women’s rugby sevens team earned bronze — their first-ever Olympic medal — thanks to an incredible last-second play by Alex Sedrick that lifted the Eagles to a 14–12 upset of Australia yesterday. Investing in women’s sports is always a good idea.
🏊 As expected, more Americans snagged medals in the pool. Regan Smith and Katharine Berkoff (women’s 100m backstroke) claimed silver and bronze, respectively, Bobby Finke (men’s 800m freestyle) took home silver, and the quad of Luke Hobson, Carson Foster, Drew Kibler, and Kieran Smith (men’s 4x200 freestyle relay) secured silver.
⚽ For the first time since 2000 (aka when NSYNC said Bye Bye Bye), the USMNT has advanced to the Olympic quarter-finals following a 3–0 group play victory over Guinea. Ain’t no lie.
🎾 American Coco Gauff suffered a controversial third-round loss to Croatia’s Donna Vekić, but thankfully, her Paris campaign continues in women’s doubles and mixed doubles today. You go, Coco.
- In non-American doubles action, Spain’s beloved duo of Rafael Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz looks strong heading into the men’s doubles quarter-final today at 1 p.m. ET.
3️⃣🏀 The U.S. women’s 3x3 basketball team’s title defense is off to a tough start after an unexpected opening 17–13 loss to Germany. Time to flip the script when Dearica Hamby and Co. face Azerbaijan today at 3:30 p.m. ET.
- The men’s 3x3 team also sadly suffered an opening loss, falling 22–14 to Serbia. Hopefully they can, ahem, rebound against Poland today at 4:35 p.m. ET.
🏄 Medals in Olympic surfing (which is taking place in Tahiti, about 10K miles from Paris) were supposed to be awarded tonight, but competition has been postponed to at least Thursday due to unfavorable weather conditions. Not so gnarly.
Women’s Artistic Gymnastics
🤸 Joy, rediscovered
The GIST: Three years after devastation at the Tokyo Olympics, U.S. women’s gymnastics completed their “Redemption Tour” yesterday, winning gold in the team final in front of a star-studded crowd. Found out, indeed.
Biles is now the most decorated American Olympic gymnast of all time: The GOAT further cemented her reputation as the greatest gymnast ever, securing a record-setting eighth Olympic medal while dominating in all four events — vault, balance beam, uneven bars, and floor.
- Biles recorded the highest U.S. scores on both the vault and floor, catapulting Team USA to a massive first-place finish ahead of Italy (silver) and Brazil (bronze).
- Biles now has five Olympic golds, with another four chances to medal during upcoming individual competitions. We are not worthy.
A true team effort: Biles’ teammates Jordan Chiles (a friend of The GIST), Sunisa Lee, and Jade Carey all featured on that silver medal Tokyo squad and were eager to show the world they deserved to stand on top of the podium in Paris.
- All three excelled — Carey threw down on the vault, Lee shined on the uneven bars and balance beam (even outscoring Biles on both), and Chiles brought the heat in all four events, most notably delivering a powerful floor routine.
What’s next: Both Biles and Lee qualified for Thursday’s individual all-around final, making it the first time two Olympic all-around champs (Biles in 2016 and Lee in 2021) will go head-to-head for the gold. How lucky are we?
Women’s soccer
⚽ What a day to have a day
The GIST: By the end of the day, we’ll know who’s joining No. 1 Spain and the No. 5 USWNT in the women’s soccer knockout round, with six spots left and six stellar group stage finale games on deck beginning today at 11 a.m. ET. Let’s kick it.
How it works: As a quick refresher, the 12 competing squads were drawn into three groups (A, B, and C) and will play every team in their group once to earn a spot in the eight-team quarter-finals.
- A win is worth three points, a draw earns you one point, and no points are awarded for losses.
- The top two teams from each group advance to the knockouts, along with the two best third-place squads. Simple as that.
USWNT faces No. 12 Australia at 1 p.m. ET: Unlike the in-purgatory No. 8 CanWNT, the Americans already clinched their knockout spot with Sunday’s 4–1 win over No. 4 Germany...but don’t expect the red, white, and blue to take it easy today.
- A win or draw (and maybe even a loss) against Australia would win them Group B and secure an advantageous draw for the rest of the tourney.
- The Matildas have been on a scoring spree in France, a troubling prospect considering American center back Tierna Davidson will miss today’s match. Thankfully, the USWNT defense is among the strongest in the Games. LFG.
Event | ⏰ (ET) | 👀 |
| 🏐 Women’s volleyball group play | 11 a.m. | 🇺🇲 USA vs. 🇷🇸 Serbia |
| 🏅🤸 Men’s artistic gymnastics all-around final | 11:30 a.m. | 🇺🇲 Frederick Richard and Paul Juda |
| 🏀 Men’s basketball group play | 3 p.m. | 🇺🇲 USA vs. 🇸🇸 South Sudan |
| 🏅🏊 Women’s 1500m freestyle final | 3:13 p.m. | 🇺🇲 Katie Ledecky |
Recs from our roster!
🫄 Who’s crushing it like a mother
Egyptian fencer Nada Hafez, who competed while seven months pregnant. Women are literally superheroes.
🏄 What we get at least one more day of
Olympic surfing…and SNL star Colin Jost’s incredible coverage from Tahiti. New dream job, unlocked.
👑 Who’s breaking barriers
Team USA’s Lauren Scruggs — the first Black American to win an Olympic fencing medal. Scruggs’ thoughts on the accomplishment? “I just hope that more…little girls like me feel they have a place in the sport.”
🤏 What dedication looks like
Australian field hockey player Matthew Dawson, who broke his right ring finger last month and chose to have it amputated rather than wait for it to heal and miss his third Olympics. Hardcore.
Today’s email was brought to you by Lauren Tuiskula, Alessandra Puccio, Marga Sison, and Katie Kehoe Foster. Fact-checking by Parul Kanwar. Ops by Briana Ekanem and Marga Sison. Ads by Katie Kehoe Foster and Alessandra Puccio. Managing edits by Lauren Tuiskula. Head of content Ellen Hyslop.