It’s almost unnatural to see Simone Biles make a mistake, but in Monday’s balance beam finals, the whole world saw it happen.
Biles, who qualified for the beam final in first position, usually keeps her cool under pressure and so far has declined to break under the weight of the enormous expectations that have been placed on her during these games. The balance beam is arguably the most precarious of gymnastics events, and even the most skilled gymnasts can be undone by nerves and see small errors snowball into huge deductions.
This time, Biles succumbed. She looked serious, but not nervous, as her coach Aimee Boorman gave her some last-minute instructions before her routine. But after a strong start, she flubbed the landing on a simple acrobatic element and put her hands down to stop herself from falling off the beam ― which incurs a deduction almost equivalent to a fall. Despite qualifying with a sky-high 15.6, she scored a 14.733 and ended up in third place on Monday, winning a bronze.
Instead, the gold medal went to Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands, and silver to Biles’ teammate Laurie Hernandez. Still, it’s all but unheard of for a gymnast to incur a deduction that large and still end up on the medal podium, but Biles did. That’s how remarkable she is.
Hernandez was also a favorite to win a medal in the event, and was selected for the U.S. team partly for her ability to deliver reliably well-executed routines on beam. As she said to herself before launching into her routine in the team final, she’s got this. She qualified for the final in second place. Hernandez turned in a sparkling performance on Monday and scored a 15.333.
Wevers, who won silver at last year’s world championships and qualified for the final in fourth position, is notable for the relative absence of tumbling in her routines and her emphasis on turns and leaps. A double pirouette was named for her after she became the first person to perform it in international competition. Wevers scored a 15.466 to win on Monday.
Hometown favorite Flavia Saraiva, Brazil’s diminutive breakout star who qualified in third place, scored a 14.533 and ended up in fifth. Saraiva’s size is an advantage on beam, where gymnasts are rewarded for completing skills in rapid succession ― known as “connections.” Smaller gymnasts can fit more skills onto the length of the beam, and Saraiva, who is barely a head taller than the beam itself, performs an impressive series of two aerial flips followed by a side-somersault.
Though Biles’ weakest apparatus is the uneven bars, she has made some errors on beam in competition this year; she wobbled precariously on the first night of Olympic trials and fell clean off on the second night. Still, given her usual dominance, it can be shocking to see her make so large an error. On the whole, she is so far ahead of other gymnasts that calling them her “competition” is almost a misnomer.
Biles is like nothing gymnastics has ever seen before. Along with teammates Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas, she’s one of only three U.S. women gymnasts to win Olympic gold three times.
And Tuesday, she has another chance to make history: She’ll compete in the floor finals, which she’s favored to win. If she does, she’ll become the first U.S. gymnast to win four Olympic gold medals.
In other words, when you’re Simone Biles, you can fall and still make gymnastics history. She’s just that good.
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