PARIS (AFP) – United States (US) gymnastics superstar Simone Biles polished off a redemptive Paris Olympics campaign with a floor exercise silver on Monday, shrugging off a balance beam fall to finish runner-up to Brazilian Rebeca Andrade.
Biles went into the final day of competition with a chance to push her tally of Paris gold to a record-setting five in one Games.
She had already led the US to team gold, regained the all-around crown she first won as part of a four-gold haul in Rio in 2016 and soared to vault gold.
She couldn’t find her way back to the top of the podium on Monday, but Biles said she’d leave Paris proud of all four of the medals that took her career total to eleven.
“Today has been absolutely wild,” Biles said, adding that she was “actually very happy, proud and even more excited that it’s over”.
“I’ve accomplished way more than my wildest dreams not just at this Olympics but in the sport,” said Biles, who owns a jaw-dropping 41 world and Olympic medals – 30 of them gold.
“So I can’t be mad at my performances,” she added. “A couple of years ago I didn’t think I’d be back here at an Olympic Games, so competing and then walking away with four medals. I’m pretty proud of myself.”
Two out-of-bounds errors proved costly in Biles’s otherwise breathtaking final floor routine. Andrade had already moved into first place with an energetic and elegant performance that garnered 14.166 points.
Biles earned 14.133 for silver ahead of teammate Jordan Chiles, who took bronze with 13.766. Chiles’s score was upgraded after a review of her degree of difficulty, a devastating blow for Romania’s Ana Barbosu who thought she had bagged bronze with her score of 13.700.
