ROTTERDAM, Netherlands — Simone Biles has spent much of her career leaving the rest of gymnastics behind. Still, Rebeca Andrade did something almost nobody else could: make the greatest gymnast in history look over her shoulder.
On Saturday, Andrade won her third world vault title in Rotterdam, joining China's Cheng Fei as the only women to achieve the feat and taking her career tally to 10 World Championships medals.
The Brazilian, 27, returned to the World Championships after three years away, five knee operations and a decision to abandon the floor exercise, in which she defeated Biles at the Paris Olympics, in hopes that a reduced programme could keep her at the top of the sport.
Watching from the stands in Rotterdam was Biles herself, whose rivalry with Andrade helped define the gymnastics competition at Paris 2024, as Andrade scored 14.466 across two vaults to finish ahead of Americans Claire Pease (14.233) and Skye Blakely (14.166), becoming the first Brazilian gymnast to win three world titles on the same apparatus.
She achieved the victory without attempting the most difficult vaults of her career, performing a Yurchenko double twist and a Lopez, with execution scores of 9.400 and 9.333, respectively.
Speaking to Brazilian outlet ge afterwards, Andrade said the result demonstrated that adjustments to her training were working, expressing pride at winning without needing her highest-difficulty skills.
Two years earlier, Andrade had pushed Biles throughout the Paris Olympics, finishing second to the American in the all-around final. After retaining her title, Biles told the French newspaper L'Équipe that she had never felt so stressed during a competition and thanked Andrade for the challenge.
The Brazilian finished 1.199 points behind Biles in the all-around final, with the American's higher-difficulty routines proving decisive as Andrade remained within striking distance.
Biles subsequently joked about being tired of competing against the Brazilian, but Andrade would have her revenge in the floor final, beating Biles by just 0.033 points to become Olympic champion.
The medal ceremony produced one of the enduring images of the Games, with Biles and American team-mate Jordan Chiles bowing towards Andrade as she stood on the top step of the podium.
Andrade left Paris with four medals, including all-around and vault silver and team bronze alongside her floor gold, bringing her Olympic total to six and making her the most decorated Brazilian Olympian in history. Her career, though, had already been interrupted by three anterior cruciate ligament injuries and five knee operations, with the physical demands of competing across four apparatus becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.
After winning floor gold on Aug. 5, 2024, Andrade did not compete again for 22 months, missing the 2025 World Championships in Jakarta before beginning a carefully managed return ahead of Los Angeles 2028.
Her long-time coach, Francisco Porath Neto (known as Chico), acknowledged uncertainty about whether she would rediscover the desire to compete, telling the Brazilian gymnastics federation that both he and Andrade had experienced doubts during her absence, according to NBC Sports .
Andrade returned in June at the Pan American Championships in Rio de Janeiro, competing only on vault and topping qualification with an average of 14.549 before winning the final with 14.266, while helping Brazil secure team silver.
Her comeback, however, came with a significant sacrifice, having announced in August 2025 that she would stop competing on floor because of the strain its tumbling passes and repeated landings placed on her knees.
Speaking to Brazilian outlet UOL after Saturday's final, Andrade reaffirmed that decision, explaining that the apparatus remained physically demanding and that she and Porath had agreed to respect her body's limitations.
The decision effectively ends her participation in the all-around, where she won Olympic silver in Tokyo as well, unless she reverses course before Los Angeles.
Instead, her focus has shifted towards specialist events and helping Brazil remain competitive in team gymnastics, with ge reporting that uneven bars are scheduled to return to her programme in 2027.
In Rotterdam, Andrade competed on vault and balance beam but did not attempt to qualify for the all-around final, while contributing scores of 14.400 and 13.433, respectively, in Wednesday's team final.
Brazil finished fifth behind China, the United States, Japan and France, a step back from the team's historic Olympic bronze in Paris and world silver in Antwerp in 2023.
Andrade's individual victory nevertheless added another world gold to a collection that began with vault gold in Kitakyushu, Japan, in 2021 and an all-around title in Liverpool the following year, before she reclaimed the vault crown in Antwerp in 2023.
Her journey began in Guarulhos, outside São Paulo, where she grew up alongside seven siblings, raised by her mother, Rosa Santos, who worked as a domestic cleaner.
Accounts of her childhood have described the financial difficulties her family faced in getting her to training, with her brother Emerson helping her make the journey before she moved away from home at a young age to pursue gymnastics.
Andrade eventually became Brazil's first female Olympic artistic gymnastics champion with vault gold at Tokyo 2020 and also won all-around silver behind American Suni Lee, before emerging as the closest rival to Biles at the Paris Games.
Biles, 29, has not competed since Paris and has yet to confirm whether she will return for Los Angeles , leaving open the possibility that the two may never compete against each other again.
Andrade expressed appreciation for the American's presence in Rotterdam, telling UOL that Biles could have spent her time elsewhere but had chosen to support the gymnasts competing at the championships.
For Andrade, the next Olympics will involve a different challenge from Paris, when she pushed Biles across four apparatus before eventually beating her on floor. Her latest world title suggests she may not need to reproduce all of that gymnastics to remain among the best in the world.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic .
Olympics, Global Sports, Women's Olympics
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