As Simone Biles wrapped up her final transcendental floor routine and saluted the judges, she held her arms above her head in a salute for as long as she could. It was partly a cheeky, sarcastic gesture, a reference to the deduction she had apparently received in the previous final for failing to properly salute all the judges, but it was also perfect. Bercy Arena, which was packed again this year for one last glimpse of her, responded by saluting her in turn with a long, heartfelt ovation.
Although Biles did not end her Paris Olympics with a picturesque golden finish on a chaotic final day of artistic gymnastics, her final day of competition in Paris was more of a demonstration of the sportsmanship and humanity that accompanied her greatness. After a fall on the balance beam resulted in a fifth-place finish, Biles won a silver medal on the floor exercise.
With gold medals in the all-around, team and vault events, plus a silver medal on the floor exercise, Biles leaves Paris with four more Olympic medals. She is now the second most decorated female gymnast at the Olympics with 11 medals in total, and she has also extended her own record as the most decorated gymnast of all time, male or female, with 41 Olympic and World Championship medals.
Much of the final day of gymnastics was a demonstration of how difficult and fraught elite gymnastics can be. In the balance beam final, four gymnasts fell and another, silver medalist Zhou Yaqin, lost her balance on a vault and put her hands on the beam. While so many of her peers faltered, Italy’s Alice D’Amato produced a cool beam routine that would earn her her first Olympic gold medal.
After being seeded seventh in the lineup, Biles stepped to the beam knowing she could win gold with a solid performance, but instead fell off the beam during her backwards layout stepout somersault. Despite her otherworldly talents, Biles is still human. She’s still susceptible to the nerves and stress of any gymnast. After competing in 17 routines over a hectic nine days, the physical and mental fatigue has long since set in. Her humanity is what makes her success so special.
The afternoon ended with the floor exercise and with a medal at stake, Rebeca Andrade produced her best floor routine of the Olympics. She had been taking significant landing deductions all week on her complex opening move, a full twisting front somersault into a full twisting back tumbling move, but this time she kept it cold. Her landings on her subsequent tumbling moves were excellent and she set the bar high with a score of 14.166.
Although Biles’ first and third moves—her triple twisting double back salto and the Biles—were both spectacular, Biles landed right out of bounds on her second and fourth moves, each of which earned a 0.3 deduction in addition to the landing deduction. Biles finished with a score of 14.133, placing her in second place behind Andrade, who won her second Olympic gold medal after winning the vault in Tokyo. Once Biles received her score, she walked over to Andrade and congratulated her.
Over the past week, Biles has been pushed to her limits by Andrade, who has given her less room for error than in any competition in the past 10 years, and Biles has met that challenge brilliantly. Ultimately, Andrade has defeated her. While Biles has further cemented her status as the greatest gymnast of all time, Andrade is carving out a special career as one of the greats in her own right.
The floor exercise final ended with more drama when Jordan Chiles, Biles’ teammate and training partner in Houston, USA, was initially ranked fifth. Chiles had been assigned a lower difficulty rating than the routine she had attempted, so USA Gymnastics filed an investigation into Chiles’ difficulty rating.
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While Ana Barbosu of Romania celebrated what she thought was her first Olympic bronze medal, with a Romanian flag around her, Chiles’s application was accepted, her difficulty level increased and she passed her in the final standings to become the bronze medalist. Biles reacted to her good friend’s first individual Olympic medal with more joy than all her own medals combined.
Despite being defeated in a floor final for the first time in her career, Biles took the defeat in her stride. When Andrade was presented to accept her gold medal on the first Olympic gymnastics podium to feature three black medalists, Biles and Chiles turned to Andrade and bowed to the new champion. “She’s so amazing,” Biles said. “She’s queen. At first, it was an all-black podium, so it’s super exciting for us. But then Jordan said, ‘Should we bow to her?’ And I said, ‘Absolutely.'”
Three years after suffering through the bends, being forced to watch her rivals from the stands and being subjected to waves of personal attacks simply for admitting she had a mental injury, Biles’s redemption tour is complete. Even after an imperfect high, she will leave Paris with her position renewed as the world’s best gymnast after one of the most legendary Olympic comebacks in history.
“I’ve achieved so much more than my wildest dreams, not only at this Olympics, but also in sports,” she said. “So I can’t be mad at my achievements. A few years ago I wouldn’t have thought I’d be back here at the Olympics. So to compete and walk away with four medals, I’m not mad at it. I’m quite proud of myself.”