Paris: Simone Biles is on the brink of joining an elite group of female Olympians as she competes for gold in the balance beam and floor exercise finals on the final day of artistic gymnastics at the Paris Games on Monday.
The American gymnastics star, who has already secured golds in the team, all-around, and vault events in Paris, is the favorite for the floor exercise. However, the balance beam presents a greater challenge where a tiny miscalculation can significantly impact her standings.
Should Biles win both the beam and floor exercises, she will tie with U.S. swimmer Katie Ledecky and Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina for the most Olympic golds won by a female athlete, with a total of nine.
On the balance beam, Biles faces stiff competition from her teammate Sunisa Lee and China’s Zhou Yaqin. Zhou, the top qualifier with a score of 14.866, narrowly edged out Biles by 0.133 points. Brazilian Rebeca Andrade, who qualified third, has the lowest difficulty among the top four but is noted for her precise execution. Lee, despite matching Biles’ difficulty in one of her three beam performances, narrowly surpassed Biles in that particular event.
Biles previously earned beam bronze at the last two Olympics, including Tokyo, where she performed a modified routine due to a mental block affecting her twisting skills.
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On the floor exercise, Biles benefits from her signature high-difficulty tumbling, including a double back flip with three twists. The competition for silver and bronze is expected to be fierce, with Andrade potentially holding back difficulty upgrades for the final, Romania’s Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, who has delivered the second most difficult routine in Paris, and American Jordan Chiles, who qualified third.
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On the same day, the men’s gymnastics finals will wrap up the Olympic competition with events on the parallel bars and horizontal bar. China’s Zou Jingyuan aims to defend his Tokyo gold on the parallel bars, having qualified first with an impressive 16.200, nearly a full point ahead of second-place Zhang Boheng. Zhang led the horizontal bar preliminaries with 15.133, ahead of Croatia’s Tin Srbic, who qualified fourth. Defending Tokyo champion Daiki Hashimoto will miss the horizontal bar final after errors in qualifying, but his teammate Shinnosuke Oka, the Paris all-around winner, is a strong contender.
