USA Gymnastics put together its women’s team for the 2024 Summer Games on Sunday night, and one has to like its chances in Paris. The team, determined after the U.S. Olympic Trials this week at Target Center, features the Games’ past two all-around gold medalists.

Simone Biles and St. Paul’s Sunisa Lee — who won the all-around gold medals at the 2016 and 2020 Summer Games, respectively — finished 1-2 in the Trials all-around after the last day of competition on Sunday.

Biles won the automatic qualification by winning the all-around with 117.225 points. The other four athletes were chosen by a strategic selection committee that convened immediately after Sunday’s competition. She and Lee will be joined in Paris by Jordan Chiles and Jade Carey, their teammate at the 2020 Games, and Hezly Rivera.

The selection committee is tasked with choosing the team USA Gymnastics believes has the best chance of medaling at the Games. Carey earned Team USA’s only individual event gold medal in Tokyo, the floor exercise.

Lee, who attended South St. Paul High School before matriculating to Auburn, was the breakout star of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, where she won the all-around gold medal and bronze in the uneven bars to help the U.S. win the team silver.

Biles returns to the Games for the third time. In 2016 in Rio De Janeiro, she powered the team to gold by winning the all-around, vault and floor exercise. She also earned bronze in the beam.

But after winning bronze in the beam in Tokyo, where the games were held in 2021 because of the COVID pandemic, Biles withdrew from the final three individual events after being overwhelmed with anxiety.

Since then, Biles, 27, has proven she is still the world’s best gymnast, winning the all-around at the 2023 world championships and earning gold in all four events at the 2024 U.S. championships.

She was a lock to make the 2024 Olympic team, and maybe Lee was, too — although she had more to prove than Biles. Diagnosed with chronic kidney disease early in 2023, she withdrew from Auburn and didn’t start training again until January of this year.

Lee, 21, won a couple of balance beam golds in national competitions, and won silver in the beam and placed fourth in the all-around at the U.S. Championships in late May, but this week was her biggest test.

She received a standing ovation, the first in four days of competition at Target Center this week, after her first routine, the balance bars. Her score, 14.875, gave her the top combination on the bars for the Trials, 29.275.

But Lee’s next routine, the balance beam — the other of her specialties — was uncharacteristically rough. She fell on her mount, then nearly fell again after a pair of difficult backward somersaults. Her score of 12.825 was her lowest of the competition.

But she rallied — her scores in the beam, floor and vault were improvements on her scores from Friday’s competition — for an overall score of 111.675. Chiles’ performance on the floor exercise (14.100) pushed her past Rivera for third in the all-around.

Briefly

— A small handful of challengers were eliminated by injuries this week. Skye Blakely injured an Achilles’ tendon during practices on Wednesday, and Kayla DiCello injured an Achilles on the first event of Friday’s competition. Shilese Jones suffered a leg injury during warmups Friday and withdrew from the Trials after being evaluated on Saturday.

— The U.S. men’s team, chosen Saturday after its second day of the Trials, was introduced during an intermission between rotations. Noticeably missing was Minnesota’s Shane Wiskus, who finished third in the all-around but was made a traveling alternate.

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Although the Mississippi River crested on Saturday afternoon and its levels are slowly dropping, it might be quite a while until parks, roads and trails are opened back up to the public, officials said Sunday.

The river crested in St. Paul at 20.17 feet Saturday afternoon and was at 19.6 feet on Sunday afternoon, said Lisa Hiebert, a spokesperson for St. Paul Public Works. This year saw the eighth-highest crest on record and fell just shy of the high level in 2019.

Just because the levels are receding doesn’t mean that much will change for now, Hiebert said, noting that the river’s level is still in “major flood” territory.

People still need to avoid anything that is closed off, she said.

“Please don’t go around anything that is barricaded,” she said. “I can’t stress that enough. That’s all in place for everyone’s safety.”

Everything that is now closed will remain closed for the time being, she said, noting that all the protective measures in place will remain, such as closures of trails, parks and launches.

And she is unable to say when this will change. “It will depend on the water levels decreasing, but just because the water recedes, there’s still a lot of work the city needs to do before reopening,” she said.

The city has to inspect the closed areas for damage, make repairs, take soil samples, clean and then remove all protective barriers and measures.

“All that takes time,” Hiebert said. “We just ask that people be patient. It’s going to take a little bit of time.”

For instance, in 2019, after flood waters receded on Water Street, an inspection found that the embankment was washed out, so the city had to completely redo the embankment and guardrail, which took nearly two years.

For updated information, visit stpaul.gov/flood.

In Stillwater, the Mississippi River is expected to crest at 1 a.m. Monday.

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The Minnesota Wild on Sunday made qualifying offers to four restricted free agents, including defenseman Declan Chisolm, who was claimed off waivers from Winnipeg last season and is expected to be on the NHL blue line this season.

Not among those qualified was forward Mason Shaw, who overcame four reconstructed knee surgeries to play 20 games with the Wild last season.

The other three players to receive offers are forwards Graeme Clarke, Adam Raska and Sammy Walker. Clarke was acquired last week in a trade that sent prospect Adam Beckman to New Jersey.

Qualifying offers are for one-year contracts.

Also not qualified were forwards Sam Hentges and Dmitry Ovchinnikov, defenseman Simon Johansson and goaltender Hunter Jones.

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SEATTLE — The Twins sure didn’t make it easy on themselves on Sunday.

It wasn’t their crispest day defensively and they gave away extra chances to a first-place team, some of which the Mariners took advantage of. But in the end, they were able to overcome all that, using a late Trevor Larnach home run to pull ahead of the Seattle Mariners in their 5-3 win on Sunday afternoon at T-Mobile Park.

Larnach’s home run extended the Twins’ streak of games with a home run to 19 games, a new club record. And it couldn’t have come at a better time.

The left fielder launched the two-run shot in the eighth inning, after former Twin Jorge Polanco had lined a ball off the right field wall, bringing home the game-tying run a half an inning earlier.

Minnesota Twins’ Jose Miranda breaks his bat on an RBI single to score Austin Martin against the Seattle Mariners during the fifth inning of a baseball game Sunday, June 30, 2024, in Seattle. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson)

That had wiped away a lead that the Mariners had cut into during a turbulent fifth inning in which starter Joe Ryan essentially had to get seven outs.

With one out in the inning and a runner on third, Ryan fielded a ball hit towards him and fired toward home. But Dylan Moore hadn’t broken home and catcher Christian Vázquez’s throw was too late to get the runner at first.

Ryan was unable to field the next ball hit towards him cleanly and his throw home was too late to get Moore. The next batter, Cal Raleigh, singled on a high fly ball to center field that Byron Buxton couldn’t track in the sun. And yet another batter, Luke Raley, reached on a groundball hit toward second that Austin Martin was able to stop. Problem was, first baseman Carlos Santana had also dove for the ball and Ryan was not at first to cover. A second run scored on the play.

But despite the defensive difficulties, the Ryan allowed just two runs that inning — and in his start overall. It may not have been his smoothest start, but he exited after 5 2/3 innings pitched having struck out 10 batters and the Twins holding a lead.

The Twins scored one run in the first inning when Trevor Larnach’s single brought home Willi Castro and another pair in the fifth inning on RBI hits from Martin, a double, and Jose Miranda.

With the win, the Twins capped their road swing 6-3, winning each series in their season-long nine-game trip.

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