US' Simone Biles (silver), Brazil's Rebeca Andrade (gold) and US' Jordan Chiles (bronze) pose during the podium ceremony for the artistic gymnastics women's floor exercise event of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Bercy Arena in Paris, on August 5, 2024. (Photo by Loic VENANCE / AFP)
Paris: American gymnast Simone Biles didn't get the golden sendoff she sought.
Biles earned silver in the floor exercise finals on Monday - her 11th Olympic medal - after a routine that included a couple of costly steps out of bounds.
Brazil's Rebeca Andrade became the first gymnast to beat Biles in a floor final in a major international competition, posting a score of 14.166 that finished just ahead of Biles at 14.133.
Jordan Chiles, a longtime friend and teammate of Biles, earned the bronze.
The 27-year-old Biles, considered the greatest in the history of the sport, wasn’t at her usual best during a routine set to music from pop icons Taylor Swift and Beyonce.
Still, she boosted her medal haul in Paris to four - gold in the team, all-around and vault finals and a silver that came as a surprise in her signature event.
"I can’t be more proud of how I’ve done," Biles said. "I’m 27 years old walking away from this Games with four medals to add to my collection. Not mad about it.”
Biles' medal total (including seven gold, two silver, two bronze) ties Czechoslovakia’s Vera Caslavska for the second-most by a female gymnast in Olympic history.
She missed a chance to add a fifth Paris medal earlier Monday when she fell during the beam final, finishing fifth.
Though she can make it look easy at times, it is not. She thudded to the mat during her floor warm-up and had the balky left calf she tweaked in qualifying last week re-wrapped before she competed.
Her tumbling passes weren’t perfect - she stepped out of bounds twice - but her difficulty is usually so far above everyone else that it hardly matters.
Not this time. She received a 7.833 execution score that included 0.6 in deductions for stepping out of bounds, allowing Andrade to win her second Olympic gold.
Still, wearing a red-white-and-blue leotard featuring thousands of crystals, Biles ended nine days of competition in Paris by silencing the critics once and for all who have long derided her for pulling out of multiple events at the Tokyo Games three years ago.
She won four medals in all, just one less than she did eight years ago in Rio de Janeiro.
Chiles - the last competitor of the day - initially received a 13.666 from judges. After some delay, her total was boosted by 0.1 when she filed an inquiry about the
difficulty component of her score. That pushed Chiles past Romanians Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea and into third.
Biles said after winning the vault final on Saturday that she noticed her haters were "really quiet now, so that’s strange.”
As opposed to the constant roar of support that followed Biles wherever she went inside Bercy Arena, which has become a hub for celebrities from across the spectrum - including former NFL great Tom Brady on Monday - whenever she performs.
Floor exercise is Biles’ signature event, one that allows her to mix boundary-pushing tumbling passes that are the hardest ever done in her sport with charismatic choreography that work together to produce perhaps the most exciting 75 seconds in her sport.
The excitement, however, was tinged a bit by an uncharacteristic lapse in execution.
The routine ends with Biles blowing a kiss, a little wink that she has incorporated into her program in various forms for years.
Whether it served as a kiss goodbye remains anyone’s guess. Maybe even Biles’.
She has stayed relatively quiet on what lies ahead for her beyond the Paris Games, though she did nudge the door open a little for a possible return when the Olympics shift to Los Angeles in 2028.
"Never say never,” Biles said after claiming her second Olympic vault title earlier in the Games. "Next Olympics are at home. So you just never know. I am getting really old.”
She will be 31 then, an age when most gymnasts have long since retired. Yet Biles is redefining that adage in real time, and considering the gap that still exists between herself and nearly everyone else in the sport - save for Andrade, who pushed Biles as hard as she’s been pushed in nearly a decade - anything is possible.
Her floor silver came about an hour after a beam final in which half of the eight women in the field found themselves hopping off in the middle of their routine after losing their balance.
Biles included. She lost her balance at the end of her acro series and received a score of 13.100 to wind up fifth, tied with teammate Sunisa Lee.
Like Biles, Lee saw her hopes for gold end in the middle of her routine when she fell during the same part of her routine as Biles.
Afterward, the two Olympic champions and longtime friends who have a staggering 17 Olympic medals between them commiserated over the weird vibe inside an oddly silent arena that is usually throbbing with music at all times.
"It adds to the stress, just because it’s like you, yes, you’re the only one up there,” said Lee, who will take some time off before making any decision about her future. "So I was feeling the pressure.”
Alice D’Amato of Italy took the gold on beam with a score of 14.366. Zhou Yaqin of China earned silver with a 14.100, just ahead of bronze medalist Manila Esposito of Italy. Italy, which won silver behind the U.S. in the team competition, had never medaled on beam before.
The awards podium stand has long served as a second home for Biles during a career that includes 41 medals in major international competitions. A number that may never be broken and - who knows? - could possibly even be added to in Los Angeles.
