After completing her final breathtaking floor routine and acknowledging the judges, Simone Biles raised her arms high in a salute for as long as she could manage. It was a playful, somewhat sarcastic nod to the deduction she had apparently incurred during the previous final for not saluting all judges properly, but it was also a fitting gesture. The Bercy Arena, once more packed for a last glimpse of her performance this year, responded with a passionate, extended ovation.
Although the American gymnast did not finish her Paris Olympics with a gold medal in a tumultuous final day of artistic gymnastics, her last day of competition became a display of the sportsmanship and humanity that has accompanied her remarkable career. After a fall on the balance beam resulted in a fifth-place finish, Biles secured a silver medal in the floor exercise.
With gold medals in the all-around, team, and vault competitions, along with the silver medal from the floor exercise, the 27-year-old leaves Paris with a total of four more Olympic medals. She now ranks as the joint-second most decorated female gymnast in Olympic history with 11 medals overall and has extended her record as the most decorated gymnast of all time, with 41 medals from Olympic and world championship events combined.
The final day served as a poignant reminder of the challenges and pressures of elite gymnastics. In the balance beam final, four gymnasts failed to stay on their feet, and one of the silver medalists, Zhou Yaqin, lost balance during a leap and had to place her hands on the beam. While many competitors stumbled, Italy’s Alice D’Amato delivered a composed performance that earned her first Olympic gold medal.
Positioned seventh in the lineup, Biles approached the beam knowing she could snatch gold with a solid performance, yet she fell while attempting a backwards layout stepout somersault. Despite her extraordinary talents, she too is human, susceptible to the nerves and pressures faced by every gymnast. After executing 17 routines over a whirlwind nine days, the physical and mental fatigue had undeniably set in. It is her humanity that makes her accomplishments truly remarkable.
The afternoon culminated in the floor exercise where Rebeca Andrade delivered her finest performance of the Olympics to claim a medal. After struggling with landing deductions earlier in the competition with her complex opening pass, she executed it flawlessly this time, achieving excellent landings on subsequent tumbling passes and setting a high benchmark with a score of 14.166.
Although Biles’s first and third passes – her triple twisting double-back somersault and the Biles – were both breathtaking, she landed out of bounds on her second and fourth passes, incurring a 0.3 deduction on each in addition to landing errors. Her final score was 14.133, placing her second behind Andrade, who clinched her second Olympic gold after previously winning the vault in Tokyo. After receiving her score, Biles walked over to Andrade to congratulate her.
Rebeca Andrade delivers her winning floor routine. Photograph: Richard Callis/SPP/Shutterstock
Over the past week, Biles has been challenged by Andrade more than any competitor in the last decade, and she has met that challenge with exceptional prowess. Ultimately, Andrade triumphed. While Biles has reinforced her status as the greatest gymnast of all time, Andrade is carving out her own legacy as one of the sport’s greats.
The floor exercise final concluded with added excitement as Jordan Chiles, Biles’s USA teammate and training partner in Houston, initially ranked fifth. Chiles had been assigned a lower difficulty score for her attempted routine, which prompted USA Gymnastics to lodge an inquiry regarding her score.
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As Ana Barbosu of Romania celebrated what she believed to be her first Olympic bronze medal, a Romanian flag draped around her, Chiles’s inquiry was granted, her difficulty score was increased, and she moved up the rankings to win the bronze medal. Biles reveled more in her close friend’s first individual Olympic medal than in any of her own accomplishments.
Despite experiencing her first defeat in a floor final, Biles took it in stride. As Andrade accepted her gold medal on the historic first Olympic gymnastics podium featuring three Black medalists, both Biles and Chiles turned to Andrade and bowed to the new champion. “She’s so amazing,” Biles stated. “She’s queen. First, it was an all-Black podium, so it’s super-exciting for us. But then Jordan was like: ‘Should we bow to her?’ And I was like: ‘Absolutely.’”
Three years after grappling with the twisties, being compelled to watch her rivals from the stands, and enduring waves of personal attacks for acknowledging her mental health struggles, Biles’s redemption arc has been realized. Even without a perfect finish, she departs Paris having reaffirmed her status as the top gymnast in the world after one of the most legendary Olympic comebacks ever witnessed.
“I’ve achieved far more than my wildest dreams, not just at this Olympics but in my career,” she reflected. “So I can’t be upset about my performances. A couple of years back, I never imagined returning to an Olympic Games. Competing and walking away with four medals is not something I can be disappointed about. I’m quite proud of myself.”
