Olympics recap: Suni Lee, Regan Smith win medals on busy Thursday in Paris

Thursday was a very busy day at the Paris Olympics for athletes with Minnesota ties.

St. Paul gymnast Suni Lee and Lakeville swimmer Regan Smith vied for more hardware in events that they medaled in at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago. Lee captured a bronze in the women’s all-around, while Smith earned a silver in the 200-meter butterfly.

Two Lynx players faced each other in a must-win group play game. Alise Willoughby of St. Cloud, Minnesota’s only four-time Olympian in Paris, began her quest for an elusive gold in BMX racing. And Gophers were on the golf course, the volleyball court and the balance beam.

Here’s how the day played out:

The United States women’s basketball team, led by Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve, defeated Belgium 87-74 behind Breanna Stewart’s 26 points and earned a spot in the Olympic quarterfinals.

The game was played in Lille, France, near the border with Belgium, so the crowd overwhelmingly favored the Belgians, who were led Emma Meesseman’s 24 points.

Belgium got to within 50-46 in third quarter, but the U.S. went on an 8-1 run, including five straight points from the Lynx’s Napheesa Collier, to build another double-digit lead. Collier finished with 7 points.

The Americans, who have won 57 straight games in the Olympics, have one more group-play game, against 2-0 Germany on Sunday.

Cyclist Alise Willoughby of St. Cloud, Minnesota’s only four-time Olympian in Paris, won all three of her quarterfinal heats in BMX racing to easily qualify for Friday’s semifinals. Sixteen riders reached the semifinals (1:15 p.m.), which will take place about 90 minutes before a winner-take-all final race. A silver medalist in Rio in 2016, Willoughby has twice crashed out the semifinals at the Olympics as she pursued an elusive gold medal.

In her third race of the day, Lakeville swimmer Regan Smith advanced to the final of the 200 backstroke with the sixth-fastest time of 2:08.14. The semifinal of the 200 backstroke took place around 50 minutes after she won the silver medal in the 200 backstroke. Her American teammate Phoebe Bacon had the top semifinal time of 2:07.32.

Smith’s Australian rival, Kaylee McKeown, is the defending champion and world record holder. She had the second fastest time of 2:07.57.

Also finishing ahead of Smith were Honey Osrin of Great Britain (2:07.84), Peng Xuwei of China (2:07.86) and Kylie Masse of Canada (2:07.92).

Two days after winning a silver medal in the 100-meter backstroke, Lakeville swimmer Regan Smith won a silver medal in the 200 butterfly on Thursday, her busiest day in the Olympic pool at Paris Games.

She had an incredible final turn as she tried to chase down Canadian phenom Summer McIntosh, finishing in an Amerian record time of 2:03.84, behind McIntosh’s Olympic record of 2:03.03.

It is the fifth Olympic medal for Smith, 22. She was the silver medalist in the 200 butterfly at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, when she also won bronze in the 100 backstroke and silver in the women’s medley relay.

Read more about Smith’s race.

Simone Biles added another medal to her triumphant return to the Olympics, reclaiming her all-around gold Thursday.

An American woman has won the gold medal in the all-around in each of the last six Olympics. The 2016 Olympic champion, Biles, 27, is the oldest women’s all-around winner since 1952. Rebeca Andrade of Brazil was second.

The race for the bronze medal was extremely tight. Suni Lee, the defending Olympic all-around was tied for fourth place with Kaylia Nemour of Algeria entering the last rotation, just 34 hundredths of a point behind Alice D’Amato of Italy.

D’Amato stepped out of bounds and didn’t stick her landings to get a 13.500. Kaylia Nemour of Algeria also stumbled a bit on her floor for a 13.100, setting the stage for Lee, who performed last of the three. She needed a 13.535 to claim the bronze. When she stuck the landing on her first tumbling pass, she beamed. She performed cleanly, except for a hop on her dismount. She got a 13.666 to leap over D’Amato and Nemour.

This was the first time two women’s gymnastics all-around Olympic champions competed against each other in a final.

Read more about the women’s gymnastics all-around final.

Simone Biles had the cleanest beam routine of the leaders, scoring a 14.566 to retake the lead.

Suni Lee had a few wobbles and balance checks and a step forward on the landing on her dismount. She received a 14.000.

She is in a tie with Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour for fourth place, just .034 points behind Alice D’Amato of Italy.

Learn all about Lee’s balance beam routine here.

Simone Biles made a mistake in her uneven bars routine, bending her knees to avoid brushing the mat on the lower bar. She scores a much lower score (13.733) on the apparatus than she has been getting in Paris, allowing Andrade (14.666) to edge ahead. Kaylia Nemour of Algeria, perhaps the best in the world in the uneven bars, also surpassed Biles in the all-around standings with a huge 15.533. Uneven bars, though, are the only apparatus in which Biles didn’t qualify for the event final, just missing by finishing ninth in qualifying. Biles has high-scoring routines in beam and floor coming up.

Lee, a bronze medalist in uneven bars at the Tokyo Olympics, scored a 14.866 to move up to fifth place.

Rebeca Andrade of Brazil has actually beaten Simone Biles on vault before, but Biles came out on top in the first rotation of the Olympic all-around, scoring a 15.766 on her signature Yurchenko double pike. She landed it, with a large hop on the dismount. Starting on vault, her weakest event, Suni Lee is in seventh place after getting a 13.933. Up next is the uneven bars, one of Lee’s top events.

There are more Minnesota connections in the women’s gymnastics all-around final than you may think. Suni Lee, the reigning Olympic all-around champion, grew up in the East Side of St. Paul and graduated from South St. Paul High School. Now 21, she is the most well-known gymnast with Minnesota ties competing Thursday in the all-around final at the Paris Olympics.

Minnesota has become a hub of elite gymnastics, and this marquee event shows that. Luisa Blanco, a 22-year-old from Dallas representing her parents’ native Colombia, is being coached by Alison Lim, the co-director of the elite program at Midwest Gymnastics in Little Canada, Lee’s home gym. Lim is married to Lee’s coach Jess Graba.

Last summer, when Blanco decided to pursue an Olympic berth, she came to Minnesota to train. And during her final season at Alabama, where she was a national champion and all-American, she would travel back and forth.

“I started training with Jess in the summer and then it was back and forth, bouncing from Bama to Minnesota, and then competing in Colombia,” Blanco told Olympics.com. “All the fun things, all while getting a master’s degree, so it’s been a heck of a ride.”

Also among the 24 competitors is a future Minnesotan: Ava Stewart of Canada is an incoming freshman at the University of Minnesota and is the first Gophers gymnast to compete at the Olympics. At age 18, Stewart is in her second Olympics, but qualified for her first all-around final. She helped Canada to a fifth-place finish in the team event.

Today will be the first time two women’s gymnastics all-around Olympic champions have competed against each other in a final, with St. Paul’s Suni Lee (Tokyo 2021) squaring off against her American teammate Simone Biles (Rio 2016).

Biles had withdrawn from the all-around at the Tokyo Games with a case of “the twisties,” creating an opportunity for Lee, then 18, to grab the gold medal.

An American woman has won the gold medal in the all-around in each of the last five Olympics, and Biles, who returned to the sport last summer after two years away, is the heavy favorite to make it six in a row. No gymnast has won the all-around gold medal in non-consecutive Olympics, and Biles, 27, would be the oldest women’s all-around winner since 1952.

Biles finish first in the women’s qualification round, 1.866 points ahead of Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who figures to be the top challenger for medals. Andrade won the silver medal, behind Lee, in Tokyo, claiming the first Olympic gymnastics medal for her country. She led the all-around competition three years ago after two rotations. She has since won gold in the vault and an all-around world championship when Biles was taking her break. Andrade is the only gymnast with a level of difficulty approaching Biles’.

There are 24 gymnasts competing in the all-around, divided into four groups of six. The top six from qualifying — Biles, Andrade, Lee, Kaylia Nemour of Algeria and Manila Esposito of Italy — are in the same group, and will begin on vault, then go to uneven bars, followed by balance beam and floor exercise.

Two members of the Lynx faced off in this one. Australia overcame Canada 70-65 in group play.

Sami Whitcomb scored 19 points and had 10 assists for Australia. The Lynx’s Bridget Carleton kept Canada in the game with 19 points and eight rebounds, both team-leading numbers. The Lynx’s Alanna Smith didn’t score for Australia but had five rebounds and three steals.

Australia is 1-1 in the group, Canada 0-2.

Erik van Rooyen of South Africa, who graduated from the University of Minnesota in 2013, is the first Gophers golfer to compete at the Olympics. He opened his tournament at Le Golf National’s Albatros Course outside of Paris with a four-under-par 67 in the first round.

He was climbing to the top of the leaderboard with four birdies on the back nine, but made double bogey on the 18th. He’s four shots behind leader Hideki Matsuyama of Japan.

The defending Olympic champion is Xander Schauffele of the United States, who has won two majors this year. Schauffele is two shots behind Matsuyama in the second place.

A middle blocker from Osaka, Airi Miyabe played for the Gophers from 2019 to 2021. Japan has lost its first two matches of her first Olympics after falling to top-ranked Brazil 25-20, 25-17, 25-18 on Thursday. Brazil advanced to the quarterfinals while Japan needs to beat Kenya on Saturday to have any hope of reaching the knockout stage.

Earlier this morning, Lakeville’s Regan Smith had the sixth-fastest time in preliminary heats in the 200-meter backstroke, 2:09.61.

Peng xuwei of China had the fastest time, 2:08.29. Smith’s backstroke rival Kaylee McKeown of Australia, the defending Olympic champion and world record holder, was third with a time of 2:08.89. Sixteen swimmers qualified for the semifinals later today; the 200 backstroke semifinal will be Smith’s third race of the day.

At last year’s world championships, McKeown won the 200 backstroke while Smith was second and Peng third.

Smith did not qualify for this event at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, and the Star Tribune’s Rachel Blount detailed the problems Smith has had with the race in this article in June.

In the 100 backstroke this week, McKeown took gold and Smith silver.