Simone Biles caps Paris Olympics 'Redemption Tour' with one last medal silver in floor routine
Sports
Gymnastics happens. Even to the greats. Even to the GOAT
ARIS (AP) — The “Redemption Tour” did not end with a golden encore for Simone Biles.
By the time she entered Bercy Arena for the beam and floor exercise finals on Monday, she was drained. Mentally. Physically. All of it.
It’s what this event does. What this sport does.
No one knows that better than the 27-year-old who has spent the last decade relentlessly propelling gymnastics — both competitively and culturally — forward.
So when Biles hopped off balance beam to miss out on one medal, then stepped out of bounds twice during her floor routine to finish second in her signature event for the first time in memory, she shrugged.
Gymnastics happens. Even to the greats. Even to the GOAT.
The woman who didn’t think she’d even be here a couple of years ago will leave Paris — and perhaps her final Olympics — with three golds and a silver and something perhaps even more valuable: peace.
“I accomplished way more than my wildest dreams, not just at this Olympics, but in the sport,” the 11-time Olympic medalist said. “So I can’t be mad at the performances. ... Competing then walking away with four medals. I’m not mad about it.”
Biles certainly didn’t look mad during the awards ceremony after the floor exercise — the first one of her career at a major competition that ended with her looking up at someone else.
Instead, she and good friend and bronze medalist Jordan Chiles bowed to Rebeca Andrade, the Brazilian who has spent the last three years as the best gymnast in the world not named Biles.
“It was just the right thing to do,” Biles said. “She’s queen.”
Then the three Black women posed together on the podium four days after Biles, Andrade and Sunisa Lee, who is Hmong-American, stood in the same spot following the all-around. Their collective success is symbolic of a sport that is becoming more diverse and more inclusive at the highest level, led by someone who still describes herself as “Simone Biles from Spring, Texas who flips.”
For a long time, the flipping is what separated Biles from everyone else. Her routines are packed with so much difficultly that a wobble here or a step out of bounds there ultimately hasn’t mattered.
t did in what could be the final routine of her career. Bothered perhaps by a left calf injury she aggravated during qualifying last week, Biles wasn’t at her best during a 75-second set that features music from pop icons Taylor Swift and Beyonce and the hardest tumbling passes ever done by a woman.
