American gymnast Simone Biles didn’t get the golden sendoff she hoped.
Biles earned silver in the floor exercise finals on Monday — her 11th Olympic medal — after a routine that included a couple of costly steps out of bounds.
Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade became the first gymnast to beat Biles in a floor final in a major international competition, posting a score of 14.166 that finished just ahead of Biles at 14.133.
Jordan Chiles, a longtime friend of Biles, earned the bronze.
The 27-year-old Biles, considered the greatest in the history of the sport, wasn’t at her usual best during a routine set to music from pop icons Taylor Swift and Beyonce.
Still, she boosted her medal haul in Paris to four, gold in the team, all-around and vault finals and a silver that came as a surprise in her signature event.
Biles’s medal total (including seven gold, two silver, two bronze) ties Czechoslovakia’s Vera Caslavska for the second-most by a female gymnast in Olympic history. She missed a chance to add a fifth Paris medal earlier Monday when she fell during the beam final, finishing fifth.
Though she can make it look easy at times, it is not. She thudded to the floor during her floor warm-up and had the balky left calf she tweaked in qualifying re-wrapped before she competed.
Her tumbling passes weren’t perfect — she stepped out of bounds twice — but her difficulty is usually so far above everyone else that it hardly matters.
Not this time. She received a 7.833 execution score that included 0.6 in deductions for stepping out of bounds, allowing Andrade to win her second Olympic gold.
Still, wearing a red-white-and-blue leotard featuring thousands of crystals, Biles ended nine days of competition in Paris by silencing the critics once and for all who have long derided her for pulling out of multiple events at the Tokyo Games three years ago.
She won four medals in all, just one less than she did eight years ago in Rio de Janeiro.
Chiles — the last competitor of the day — initially received a 13.666 from judges. After some delay, her total was boosted by 0.1 when she filed an inquiry about her difficulty score, pushing Chiles past Romanians Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea and into third.
WATCH l Full replay of Monday’s artistic gymnastics apparatus finals:
CBC takes you to a busy day in artistic gymnastics. The men’s parallel bars and horizontal bar final go as well as the women’s balance beam and floor exercise final.
Zou successfully defends parallel bars title
Zou Jingyuan lived up to his nickname.
The King of Parallel Bars was close to perfection Monday to defend his Olympic title on the apparatus on the final day of artistic gymnastics at the Paris Games.
It was Zou’s third medal in Paris after he and his teammates were runner-up behind Japan in the team event. He also claimed a silver in rings.
Zou, who is also a three-time world champion in the discipline, claimed gold ahead of Illia Kovtun of Ukraine. Shinnosuke Oka of Japan, the all-around champion, took bronze.
A right shoulder injury has been hampering Zou in the buildup to the Games and in Paris. He said his “passion for gymnastics” helped him through.
“I’m super excited for this result, because coming to these Olympics, I had injuries,” he said. “I didn’t really practice that much. But I went through my routine over and over again in my head, so many times. I had pain in my body, but coming here and seeing all the crowd supporting us has helped me a lot. It made me feel better.”
Kovtun kicked off the event with a difficult routine that included a spectacular handstand on one rail that impressed judges and earned him a score of 15.500.
He remained in the lead until Zou posted a massive 16.200 with a sublime routine combining strength elements with impressive aerials that he capped with a stuck dismount. That was the highest single score in artistic gymnastics at these Games.
It was a rare feat from Zou, who became the first man to defend his title on parallel bars at the Olympics since Sawao Kato of Japan in 1976.
Oka captures 3rd gold of Olympics
Oka concluded his Paris Games with a gold on the horizontal bar, his third gold of these Olympics.
The former junior world champion whose career was put on hold by a serious knee injury two years ago edged Angel Barajas of Colombia. Both athletes finished tied for first position with 14.533 points, but Oka was declared the winner thanks to a better execution note.
Oka also won a bronze medal on parallel bars in Paris.
The horizontal bar contest was very tight. Behind Oka and Barajas — who claimed Colombia’s first ever medal in gymnastics — Zhang Boheng of China and Tang Chia-Hung of Taiwan shared the bronze medal with a score of 13.966 points and an identical execution note.