08/09/2024
Simone Biles, in Paris finale, stumbles but still shines
Biles fell from the beam and stumbled in her floor routine, costing her more Olympic gold. But her comeback is still complete.
PARIS — Simone Biles’s closing act of these Paris Games wasn’t a coronation. The world’s best gymnast didn’t step inside this arena and assert her dominance. Her final performance here instead tested her mettle.
In a fitting end to her comeback story, Biles had to overcome disappointment, then reminded the world she is human — incredible but not invincible. Two hours after missing out on a beam medal, Biles ended her competition with an imperfect performance on floor, but she did it on her own terms. After two powerful tumbling passes, she stepped out of bounds, costing her the gold medal. She finished these Games on the second-place podium but already had earned three other medals here, all gold.
“I’m not very upset or anything about my performance at the Olympics,” said Biles, who admitted to being fatigued. “I’m actually very happy, proud and even more excited that it’s over — the stress of it.”
Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who pushed Biles in the all-around final as well, won gold on floor with a less difficult routine but the secure landings that Biles lacked. Andrade’s 14.166 narrowly edged Biles’s mark of 14.133. Biles’s U.S. teammate Jordan Chiles won the bronze after a last-minute score inquiry increased her mark by one-tenth. On the podium, Biles and Chiles bowed — facing Andrade and raising their arms up and down — to recognize the gold medalist.
Biles has said this Olympics was about redemption — not for others but for herself. A disorienting mental block amid unrelenting pressure at the Tokyo Games derailed her Olympics three years ago. This time, she left with four medals. Her mistakes — first an error on bars in the all-around competition, then a fall on beam that led to a fifth-place finish in Monday’s final and the shaky landings on floor in the finale — proved she’s not perfect. But her ability to finish on the podium in the end showcased her grit.
Monday’s beam final was the first time Biles had performed in any Olympic competition and not won a medal. She had to regroup, with only a short break before she returned for the floor final. Her routine was well executed, but her excess of power pushed her into silver medal position, and Biles’s final moment in this arena was with her top challenger standing above her on the podium.
“A lot of people think because you’re favorites that it’s given,” said Laurent Landi, who coaches Biles and Chiles. “There is nothing given in sport. … They look very happy, and so I’m very pleased with that. I know it could have been a little bit better today, but at the end of the day, they accomplished greatness.”
This performance marked the end of Biles’s Olympics — and possibly her career. Biles, 27, has not closed the door on the Los Angeles Games in 2028, but she said, “I am getting really old.”
With this final podium finish, Biles has 11 Olympic medals, including seven golds, and 30 more (23 gold) from the world championships. She is the most decorated gymnast in history, and she has more Olympic medals than any American gymnast.
“I have accomplished way more than my wildest dreams, not just at this Olympics but in the sport,” Biles said.
Then after Biles had finished answering a question to a room full of reporters, Chiles quietly said, “I’m going to miss you, man.”
The world watched Biles become a teenage sensation at the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016. In the following years, she was an unstoppable force — racking up medals, breaking records and pushing the boundaries of her sport. And then the world saw her at her lowest three years ago at the Tokyo Olympics, where she stalled midair, her mind and body out of sync, and decided it was too unsafe to carry on.
That ill-timed breakdown on the global stage set up this third Olympic act. As she waited for her low score on beam to appear on the video board, several fans shouted, “We love you, Simone!” They knew the significance of Biles’s return to the Games was rooted in the magnitude of her past struggle.
“It’s amazing,” Landi said. “I frankly didn’t think it was going to be possible because [the] trauma, I think, was deep and real.”
After the Tokyo Games, Biles didn’t know what would come next. She thought she would never compete again. But she gradually returned, first casually visiting the gym her parents own to see her friends and play around with simple flips on the trampoline. Eventually, the comeback became serious, albeit with unspoken goals. When Biles returned to competition in 2023, she dominated the field. She has been excellence since, her Olympic errors coming as uncharacteristic lapses.
Biles has competed in 37 individual finals and finished on the podium 33 times at the world championships and the Olympics. Her mistake on beam led to one of those rare disappointments.
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Biles usually performs a back handspring connected with two back layouts, but in the final, she stopped after the first salto and came off the beam. It was a messy competition, with four of eight athletes falling off the apparatus and another grabbing the beam to steady herself. Italy’s Alice D’Amato stayed poised and clinched the gold with a score Biles had tied or bested in her previous three performances.
“You could feel the tension in the room,” said teammate Sunisa Lee, who placed sixth after she too fell off the apparatus. She mentioned how she and Biles were frustrated that the crowd kept making shushing noises, adding: “We didn’t like that, just because it’s just so silent in there.”
On floor, the crowd roared and clapped along with routines. Biles’s performance by far packed the most difficulty into 90 seconds. She soared through the air, with two of her tumbling passes featuring skills she pioneered. Biles always impresses on this apparatus, even in the finale when she wasn’t at her best. Those steps outside the boundary kept her from writing a perfect ending. Instead she won the silver, and that was enough for Biles, awe-inspiring but fully human, to leave these Games content.
