“The other girls are catching up to her [Simone]” – the former French gymnast-turned-Simone Biles’ coach Cecile Landi has said in Netflix’s Simone Biles: The Rising documentary. But, putting contrast to her coach’s opinion, Simone Biles confirms that her Brazilian opponent is way beyond falling into that “Other girls” bracket. “Rebeca Andrade. She scares me most” Biles said. Thanks to the Paris Olympics, the gymternet world will not have to wait for another season of the documentary to learn more about the eye-catching gymnastics rivalry between them.

Both Simone and Rebeca are in Paris now, and their training scenes ahead of the big game are flowing all over the internet. Expectedly, fans have brainstormed over the palpable outcome and seem divided in taking sides. So here are a few calls on the upcoming battle that will decide the best.

The battle between Yurchenkos in the City of Lights 

Yesterday, the US women’s gymnastics team carried out their Olympic podium training in Paris’ Bercy Arena. However, Simone Biles attracted the lion’s share of the limelight with her Yurchenko Double Pike (YDP) vault. The move is already touted as the toughest one, with a 6.4 difficulty score. Nowadays, Simone Biles doesn’t need her coach Laurent to support the mat while she lands, completing two flips in the air. She has proved this part in the trials, and if necessary, the 27-year-old will hold the audience captive in the contest at the Paris Olympics. So how will her Brazilian opponent counter her?

Rebeca Andrade has her own way. Against Simone’s YDP, she has sharpened the Triple Twisting Yurchenko (TTY). Drawing a comparison with the YDP, the TTY has been regarded as one of the hardest moves on the vault table, and it is yet to be performed by any woman gymnast on the global stage. So if the 25-year-old performs it in Paris, the edge will be hers. On the floor exercise as well, Rebeca is planning to add improvisation.

Recently, the Brazilian women’s gymnastics squad’s podium training sent a shockwave throughout gymternet. The reason is Rebeca Andrade’s alien move in the floor exercise. She combined the Chuso with a whip, Gogean, Mustafina, front full to full-in, with a hop out. In the meantime, several fans have added that both Rebeca and Simone are going to perform Beyoncé’s songs in their floor exercises. The rumor is that Simone will feature “Delresto Echoes,” while Rebeca will be seen performing “End of Time.” Such a neck-to-neck fight can yield almost similar staggering results. The gymnastics raconteur, Poor Lawyer, gives his ‘yes’ to that.

As per him, Rebeca Andrade can achieve a D score total of 25.4 compared to Simone Biles’ D score total of 26.2, keeping a low gap. Another raconteur, Owen, also backs the same result. But hardly anything might stand if both gymnasts draw motivation from their respective pasts.

Simone Biles and Rebeca Andrade bring almost similar bags with them 

Last year, at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships, Rebeca Andrade shared the podium four times with Simone Biles, and in one of those instances, the Brazilian remained ahead of the American. In the vault routine, Simone had no answer to Rebeca’s flips. Furthermore, her fall on the apparatus downsized her score, resulting in her prime opponent taking the top podium spot. But for Rebeca, something more was waiting as an accolade.

Simone Biles has the most WAG titles. But she felt so impressed by Rebeca that she metaphorically crowned Rebeca as the next gymnastics queen. Such a prized scene from the final day of the floor exercise at WAG 2023 went viral, and people started touting her as the next gymnastics queen. However, she had her chance in Tokyo to announce herself as the one, but something different came out then.

After Simone Biles bowed out because of ‘twisties,’ Rebeca Andrade rose to be the favorite to win the Tokyo Olympics all-around title. But Suni Lee elevated herself and pushed Rebeca to the second position. So this time, when Simone will be scratching the ground to finish her Tokyo job, the Brazilian veteran will be eyeing a similar prize. Both of them have shown that they can produce higher numbers than anyone else on any given day.

Above all, Rebecca Andrade has her words ready for such a day, as she has claimed, “I think it’s going to be so cool, for real! Therefore, the gymternet might expect a feast of scores on the mat at the Paris Olympics.