Simone Biles appeared to show her frustration towards the Paris crowd after her chances of winning another Olympic medal vanished in the balance beam final.
The American superstar was attempting to win her first-ever individual balance beam gold medal but fell short after falling off the beam during a difficult routine at the Bercy Arena. Biles’ efforts to get on the podium again saw her opt to perform a challenging routine – which she failed to nail.
Biles was unable to keep her balance after a string of three backflips and her score was penalized as a result. The 27-year-old’s score of 13.100 was only enough to put her in 5th place – one place above fellow American Suni Lee. Italy’s Alice D’Amato took gold with a mark of 14.366, China’s Yaqin Zhou won silver, with the bronze medal collected by 17-year-old Italian Manila Esposito.
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During her agonizing wait to learn her fate, Biles appeared to be irritated by the crowd’s reaction as she was heard on television feed saying something to the crowd. "Stop shushing, why are they shushing," she appeared to say.
Her reaction was picked up on the broadcast and discussed on commentary and during a review of her performance. "Simone is not happy at all. It just goes to show she is a human being," BBC commentator Craig Heap said. "All the other ladies in that final have made mistakes. She’s not invincible."
Former Great British Olympic bronze medal-winning gymnast Beth Tweddle added: "We usually say about beam that who stays on wins a medal, and unfortunately that’s the way it’s gone. There was a lot of errors in that final. The two Italians went out and did their routines cleanly, and that’s the result.
“The pressure of an Olympic final is so much and you only have to be slightly off line and that’s game over. You cannot pull it back. They were going for some difficult elements out there."
Biles reflected on her beam performance and labeled the final ''odd", saying: "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 favorite, none of us liked it. It was an odd beam final.”
Biles won her third gold medal of the Games in the individual vault final over the weekend but she was unable to add to them on Monday in her final day of action in Paris as she also missed out on gold on the floor exercise . Biles was beaten to gold by Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, as the American duo of Biles and Jordan Chiles took silver and bronze respectively.
The most decorated female gymnast in Team USA’s history is just two gold medals behind the most successful female Olympians of all time. Biles could be motivated to continue her career and aim for the Los Angeles Games, when she will be 31, with gymnast Larisa Latynina and Katie Ledecky leading the way on nine golds each.
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