Some gymnasts and coaches said there was an uncomfortable atmosphere at the Bercy Arena during Monday’s error-ridden balance beam final.
“The crowd was great, except for the ‘hissing’ on the beam,” Simone Biles’ coach Cecile Landi said after the match.
A number of well-meaning spectators tried to silence the athletes as they cheered each other on and also to silence the other spectators, but this did not have the desired effect.
After completing her beam performance, during which she fell, Biles looked bewildered and her teammate Sunisa Lee could be heard asking, “Why are they silent?”
“It was really weird and awkward, not our favorite. None of us liked it,” Biles told reporters after finishing fifth on beam despite qualifying second.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, gymnasts often prefer noisy arenas, even on an apparatus as unstable as the beam, because it allows the athlete to focus on the task at hand.
“Frankly, we perform better in noisy environments because it feels more like practice,” Biles said.
The format of apparatus finals means that only one gymnast competes at a time, which adds to the pressure, as each competitor is acutely aware that all eyes in the arena are on them.
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“You could feel the tension in the room. I mean, the crowd cheering us on like we did, we didn’t like it because it was so quiet,” said Lee, one of four finalists who fell from the beam after finishing sixth. “I love hearing my teammates cheering for me.”
The athletes indicated that they had tried to solve the problem themselves.
“We asked several times if we could have some music or background noise, so I don’t really know what happened,” Biles said.
Bronze medalist Manila Esposito, who together with teammate and gold medalist Alice D’Amato won Italy’s first-ever medal on the balance beam at the Olympics, could also find a bright spot.
“There was a lot of silence in the gym and that made it a little more stressful, but it was nice because when we finished the exercise, it was even louder than normal,” she said.