Watch Team USA gymnasts enact infamous Kanye West speech while picking up gold medal at Paris 2024 Olympics
The triumphant US women’s gymnastics team have celebrated their Olympic victory by lip-syncing to Kanye West’s famous Grammy speech – watch the footage below.
The quartet, led by Simone Biles, alongside Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey, took the gold medal in the women’s artistic team all-around event in Paris yesterday (July 30), holding off the challenge of Italy and Brazil, who took silver and bronze respectively.
The win was especially sweet for Biles, who had a turbulent time at the last Summer Olympics, being forced to withdraw as one of the stars of the Games after suffering from mental health challenges.
This time around, the team savoured the moment by mouthing along to the words uttered by Kanye at the 2005 Grammy Awards when he won Best Rap Album for ‘The College Dropout’.
“Everybody want to know what I would do if I didn’t win,” Lee and Jordan lip-sync at the start of the clip posted to Lee’s Instagram.
“I guess we’ll never know,” mouth all four as a punchline.
This comes just days after the US Olympic team were introduced in a promotional video by Beyoncé. Dressed in a USA-branded white bodysuit, blue cowboy hat and white cowboy boots – in reference to her current country era with her new album ‘Cowboy Carter’ – Queen Bey hyped up several high-profile athletes, including Biles, sprinters Sha’Carri Richardson and Noah Lyles and swimmers Caeleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky. The video was soundtracked by her recent single ‘YA YA’.
“Get a look at America, y’all,” Beyoncé said in the video. “These hopes and dreams, these superstars that represent us. The people of this big, bold, beautiful, complicated nation. All rooting together for them.”
She added: “That pride and that joy? That’s what gets me about this team. And that’s what makes me believe in this team. And that’s why I can’t wait to see what they pull off over these next 16 days. America, give it up for Team U.S.A., the very best of who we are. What a vision to behold. What a team to believe in. What a night to celebrate.”
The Paris Olympics kicked off on Friday (July 26) with a divisive opening ceremony that included performances from a showstopping Celine Dion, a pre-recorded Lady Gaga and a history-making Gojira.
Since then, Taylor Swift has reacted to her track ‘…Ready For It?’ being used in an NBC advert for the Games. “So ready to scream at my TV cheering for these athletes,” she wrote.
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Max Pilley
NME
