PARIS — Gymnast Simone Biles sprinted fearlessly toward the vault, soared above demons that can no longer touch her and stuck the landing straight through the heart of darkness that can lurk within us all.

More than any of her eight Olympic medals or five gravity-defying tricks named in her honor, what we saw Tuesday might have been Biles’ most heroic moment of her brilliant career.

“Gymnasts,” Biles said, “they used to try to put us in a box.”

Biles is a GOAT that has learned to run free, no longer caged by everyone’s expectations that she be perfect, more robot than human.

The greatest gymnast that has ever lived led the USA to gold during a never-a-doubt victory in the team competition.

There was not only celebration, but a feeling of catharsis, in an arena where the weight of Biles’ well-documented physical and mental traumas of the Tokyo Olympics was lifted as high as a sign in the crowd that proclaimed: “Biles for president.”

The GOAT is back, free from the “twisties” that destroyed her equilibrium and shook her confidence three years ago.

“She wanted to rewrite her story,” said Cecile Lande, who serves as mentor and confidante to Biles.

“Nobody truly knows what the past three years have been like for her … But everything she has been through has been so worth it. And today (Biles) proved she is still on top of the world.”

This joyous comeback, which began on the vault where her personal nightmare began the last time the world’s eyes were on Biles and ended with the GOAT alone on the tumbling mat as every voice in Bercy Arena hailed her triumphant return, raised goose bumps.

“After I finished the vault, I was really relieved,” said Biles, who admitted thinking: “Woo! There’s no flashbacks” and “Oh, yeah. We’re definitely going to do this.”

But truth be told, a 27-year-old gymnast reclaiming her GOAT card was not the real story on this hot summer night in France.

Biles has become a greater force in sports than anyone, maybe including herself, could’ve envisioned when she sent shock waves through the Olympics and walked away from competition during the already pandemic-stressed Summer Games of 2021 to attend to her mental health.

She is now bigger than an athletic hero.

At 4-foot-8, Biles now stands as a giant beacon for anyone that has stared into the darkness of psychological distress.

Of all her skill at bending the laws of physics, maybe Biles’ most spectacular move was to ask for help, and not care who accused her of weakness. She possessed the self-awareness and humility to realize there are some foes even a champion can’t beat alone.

“Since Tokyo,” said longtime U.S. teammate Jordan Chiles, “I’ve definitely seen (Biles) develop a lot of things in herself she wasn’t able to see then, but can see now.”

Rather than dissect the technical details of this lopsided American victory, which the United States won by a whopping margin over second-place Italy, suffice it to say Biles was caught leisurely yawning on the arena’s jumbotron before her routine on the uneven bars, then laughed upon the realization she’d been caught on video.

That newfound sense of peace under pressure, said Chiles, is another example why Biles is “the GOAT of all GOATs.”

The highest levels of competitive sport reside in such rarefied air it can be difficult to breathe. There’s loneliness and isolation an Olympic athlete can feel at the mountaintop.

And that’s why the best nugget of the night was a small truth told by Biles.

The USA actually won the competition nearly 24 hours before it began, when Biles huddled for a late-night, heart-to-heart chat with Chiles and Suni Lee, who won Olympic gold in the individual all-around competition three years ago.

“We were all full of nerves and we weren’t communicating with each other,” Biles said.

So they made a bond, with this declaration: The Olympics are too hard to go alone. Don’t lock yourself emotionally in a box. Courage is leaning into your fears. Asking for help can be a show of strength. Hug a teammate. And embrace the fun.

“We don’t,” Biles said, “have to be put in a box anymore.”

At the end of an evening that shined in glorious hues of red, white and blue, retired U.S. gymnast Aly Raisman playfully asked Biles if this new group of Wheaties champs had given themselves a nickname or come up with a team motto.

Trying to be tasteful and diplomatic, Biles and Chiles stuck their heads together in the hope of replying to the question with an acronym.

“‘F’ …” Biles began with the first letter, before giddy laughter caused the two gold medalists to lose their concentration.

Then together, these two leaders of the USA’s real Olympic dream team, blurted out what the rest of the gymnastics world already knows, “… around and find out.”