Simone Biles has left Paris with her head held high after four Olympic medals took her all-time total up to 11.
Combined with the casual 40 World Championship medals, she is now the most decorated gymnast in history.
While Biles managed to land three gold spots in this year’s games, one event left her disappointed after she lost her balance on the beam – much to the shock of those watching.
The Olympian managed to regain composure and returned to the beam to earn a score of 13.100, but sadly it wasn’t enough for her to medal as she placed fifth.
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Italian Alice D’Amato took home the coveted gold medal, Zhou Yaqin from China placed second and Italy’s Manila Esposito took bronze.
What went wrong?
Many people were surprised by Biles’ out-of-character mistake, considering she is considered to be one of the greatest gymnasts in the world – if not THE greatest gymnast.
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The BBC reported that encouraging shouts of ‘Come on Simone’ could be heard in the venue when she had been on the beam, alongside ‘shushing’ sounds from others in the audience – something Biles had picked up on.
As she returned to the athlete seating area to rejoin her coach and fellow Team USA gymnast Sunisa Lee, she reportedly asked: “Why are they all shushing?
“As soon as I’m going they’re like shushing so much.”
Lee – who also fell off the bar and placed sixth in the individual balance beam with a score of 13.100 - added: “I don’t know why, are they [the Olympic gymnastics organisers] telling them to?”
Simone Biles speaks out
Biles has since spoken out about the understandably ‘odd final’, telling the Press Association that she could hear various off-putting sounds while competing.
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“The beam final is always the most stressful, usually we have music or background noise, whatever that may be, and honestly we do better in environments when there’s noise going on because it feels the most like practice,” she said.
“Today you could hear the ringtones going off, the photo clickers, whatever that was and you’re trying to stay in your zone and then the people start cheering and the shushing gets louder so they should be shushed because they’re louder.
“I don’t know, it was really weird and awkward and we’d asked if we’ve could have some music or some background noise, so I’m not really sure what happened there. It’s not our favourite, none of us liked it.
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“It was an odd beam final.”
Still, she’s hardly done badly for Paris, having ended the games with a silver medal on the floor.
She added: “A couple of years ago I didn’t think I’d be back at an Olympic games so competing and walking away with four medals, I’m not mad about it, I’m pretty proud of myself and it’s always so exciting to compete.”
Topics: Simone Biles, Olympics, Sport
Jess Hardiman