Team USA’s Simone Biles had to settle for a disappointing silver in the floor exercise final after missing out in the balance beam.
United States gymnastics superstar Simone Biles has polished off a redemptive Paris Olympics campaign with a floor exercise silver medal, shrugging off a fall from the balance beam earlier in the day to finish runner-up to Brazil’s 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 Olympic Games.
She had already led the USA to team gold, regained the all-around crown she first won as part of a four-gold haul in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and collected a third gold on Saturday when she soared to the vault title with a stellar rendition of her signature Yurchenko double pike vault.
But she couldn’t find her way back to the top of the podium on Monday, two out-of-bounds errors proving too costly in an otherwise breathtaking final floor routine.
Andrade had already moved into first place with an energetic and elegant routine that garnered 14.166 points.
Biles earned 14.133 for silver ahead of teammate Jordan Chiles, who took bronze with 13.766.
The American’s legion of fans gave her a standing ovation anyway, and Biles departed the floor mat with both arms raised in acknowledgement.
Record gold bid setback
Biles’s earlier fall from the beam on Monday – 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. Alice D’Amato became the first Italian female 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.
Biles’s stumble during the beam competition ended her chance to join Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina and US swimmer Katie Ledecky as the only women to pile up nine Olympic golds. The 27-year-old remains on seven career Olympic golds.
Biles hasn’t quite ruled out a return for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games in her home country.
