Paris (AFP) – US gymnastics superstar Simone Biles polished off a redemptive Paris Olympics campaign with a floor exercise silver on Monday, shrugging off a balance beam fall to finish runner-up to Brazilian Rebeca Andrade. Biles went into the final day of competition with a chance to push her tally of Paris gold to a record-setting five in one Games. She had already led the United States to team gold, regained the all-around crown she first won as part of a four-gold haul in Rio in 2016, and soared to vault gold.
She couldn’t find her way back to the top of the podium on Monday, but Biles said she’d leave Paris proud of all four of the medals that took her career total to eleven. “Today has been absolutely wild,” Biles said, adding that she was “actually very happy, proud and even more excited that it’s over.” “I’ve accomplished way more than my wildest dreams not just at this Olympics but in the sport,” said Biles, who owns a jaw-dropping 41 world and Olympic medals — 30 of them gold. “So I can’t be mad at my performances,” she added. “A couple of years ago I didn’t think I’d be back here at an Olympic Games, so competing and then walking away with four medals. I’m pretty proud of myself.”
Two out-of-bounds errors proved costly in Biles’s otherwise breathtaking final floor routine. Andrade had already moved into first place with an energetic and elegant performance that garnered 14.166 points. Biles earned 14.133 for silver ahead of teammate Jordan Chiles, who took bronze with 13.766. Chiles’s score was upgraded after a review of her degree of difficulty, a devastating blow for Romania’s Ana Barbosu who thought she had bagged bronze with her score of 13.700. Biles’s legion of fans gave her a standing ovation anyway, and the American departed the floor mat with both arms raised in acknowledgement.
Her earlier fall from the beam — one of several in the final — was the first major hiccup of her triumphant Olympic return, three years after a bout of the disorientating “twisties” cut short her Tokyo Games campaign. Biles finished fifth in beam, where Alice D’Amato became the first Italian woman gymnast to claim Olympic gold with a score of 14.366. Teammate Manila Esposito joined D’Amato on the podium in third, with China’s Zhou Yuqin taking silver. The treacherous nature of the 10cm-wide beam was clear when the first three starters made big mistakes. China’s world silver medallist Zhou lost her balance and had to grab the beam to avoid coming off. American medal contender Sunisa Lee took a hard fall onto the beam when her foot slipped at the end of an aerial series. Brazilian Julia Suarez also fell, and Romanian Sabrina Maneca-Voinea fell twice.
D’Amato had a couple of minor wobbles in an otherwise impeccable routine to seize first place just before Biles competed. The US superstar, again greeted rapturously by a Bercy Arena crowd dotted with celebrities, made a confident start. But she, too, slipped off at the end of an aerial series, drawing a collective gasp from the crowd. Biles said the lack of music during the beam routines — which made random crowd noises such as phones and cameras more noticeable — made for a “really weird and awkward” atmosphere. “None of us liked it,” she said. “It was an odd beam final.” Visibly disappointed, Biles had to wait an agonizingly long time for her score of 13.100 to be posted. That was nowhere near good enough, and Biles’s chance to join Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina and US swimmer Katie Ledecky as the only women to pile up nine Olympic golds was over — at least for this year. The 27-year-old hasn’t quite ruled out a return for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles.
– Oka treble – Japan’s Shinnosuke Oka nabbed his third gold of the Games, adding the horizontal bar gold to his team and all-around titles. In another apparatus final littered with mistakes, Oka edged 17-year-old Colombian Angel Barajas. They finished with the same score of 14.533 but Oka, 20, pocketed the gold thanks to a higher score for execution. There was nothing to separate China’s Zhang Boheng and Taiwan’s Tang Chia-Hung, who shared bronze on 13.966.
Oka added a fourth medal, bronze, in a parallel bars final won by China’s defending champion Zou Jingyuan. Zou scored a massive 16.200 points to retain the title he won in Tokyo in emphatic style, adding a first Paris gold to his team and rings silvers. Ukraine’s Illia Kovtun took silver with 15.500 points ahead of Oka’s 15.300.
© 2024 AFP
