Olympic Gymnastics Live: Simone Biles, in Comeback, Takes Bronze in Balance Beam

“I wasn’t expecting to medal,” Biles said. “To have one more opportunity to be at the Olympics meant the world to me.”

By Juliet Macur

Simone Biles didn’t want her Olympics, and perhaps her career, to end with her in the stands and not on the competition floor.

It couldn’t end that way, after all, considering everything she had sacrificed to make it to these Tokyo Games. She suffered through years as a sexual abuse survivor after realizing that Lawrence G. Nassar, the longtime United States national team doctor, had molested her during what he called standard medical treatments. And she had endured a whole extra year of training on aching muscles and painful ankles and dealing with U.S.A. Gymnastics, the entity that enabled her abuse and, as she has said, betrayed her.

As the face of the sport and of Team U.S.A., Biles needed to challenge herself one more time. So on the final day of artistic gymnastics at the Tokyo Games, after skipping all but one competition because of a mental health issue, she appeared on the balance beam and performed well enough to win the bronze medal. With a complicated routine performed with grace, China’s Guan Chenchen won the gold. Tang Xijing, also of China, won the silver.

“I wasn’t expecting to medal,” Biles said. “To have one more opportunity to be at the Olympics meant the world to me.”

Biles finishes the Tokyo Games with two medals: one silver in the team final and her bronze on Tuesday.

With the stands in one end of the Ariake Gymnastics Center nearly packed with fans on Tuesday, including Thomas Bach, the president of International Olympic Committee, Biles waved when her name was announced for the balance beam final, to a roar of cheers. They were clearly here to see Biles, in what might have been her final performance as an elite gymnast.

The most decorated gymnast in history was back, and the spotlight on her was searing. Even during her warm-up more than two hours before the event, at least five dozen camera lenses were focused on her.

Biles, 24, performed backhand springs, flips, split leaps and a double back flip in the pike position for her dismount. There were a few moments of shakiness, but overall it was a solid routine for someone who was handling so much stress at these Games. Gone were the twists from her complicated and difficult dismount that was named after her. But she finished her routine with a smile, patting her chest and running to give her coach, Cecile Landi, a hug, before embracing her teammate Sunisa Lee, who did not win a medal and finished in the middle of the pack.

Biles then laughed and pointed to a fan in the stands who held up two giant cutout photos of her French bulldogs, Lilo and Rambo.

When her score popped up on the leaderboard, Biles shook her head in agreement. It was 14.0, far below her usual score, but the best part of it, according to the look of relief on her face, was that she was done. As she waited for the other gymnasts to complete their routines, she exhaled deeply at least a half dozen times.

Since last week, Biles, the four-time Olympic champion, had become a polarizing figure among sports fans when she pulled out of the team final after it started. She had performed a watered-down vault because she had gotten lost in the air and couldn’t tell where the ground was in relation to her body. Later, she said she was struggling with a mental block and had somehow forgotten how to twist her body as she flew through the air.

While some people praised Biles for caring for her mental wellness, others criticized her for not powering through to support her team, which ended up with a silver medal, not the gold it was expected to win.

Going into the final, Biles said she had been “fighting all of those demons” relating to perfection and the weight of being a global celebrity. She did not feel that she was competing at these Games for herself — and thus was missing the point of being here — because the expectations of others had crept in and stolen her joy.

On Tuesday, millions of eyes were watching to see how she would come back after days of watching her teammates compete and win medal after Olympic medal. But only she was up on the beam, there, alone, just her against the four-inch piece of wood, to see if she could shoo away the demons for long enough — just for that minute and a half — so her Olympics would end on a positive note.

And it did.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/08/03/sports/gymnastics-olympics-biles-beam-final/