Topline
The most decorated gymnast in the history of the sport added one last Olympic medal for the year Monday with a second-place finish for silver in the floor exercise, bringing her total medal count for the Paris games to four and her career tally to an impressive 11—tying her for second place as the female gymnast with the most Olympic hardware.
USA’s Simone Biles during the Women’s Floor Exercise Final on Monday, Aug. 5, 2024.
Key Facts
Biles, who had the floor routine with an ultra high start value thanks to challenging moves like the Biles II (a triple double), scored 14.133 for her routine, losing to gold medalist Rebeca Andrade’s 14.166 and beating fellow American bronze medalist Jordan Chiles’ 13.766.
Biles stepped out of bounds twice on her floor routine—in her second and fourth passes—which earned her two 0.3-point deductions, leaving room for Brazil’s Andrade to take the gold.
Biles competed much of the games with what appeared to be a strained calf muscle she seemed to tweak during warm ups for the team competition and had her leg wrapped for the rest of the games, and she fell while practicing the Biles II in warmups for the floor exercise Monday.
Biles competed in her last two individual events at what might be her last Olympics Monday in Paris—the balance beam and floor exercises.
Both Biles and American Suni Lee fell during their balance beam routines and finished in fifth and sixth places, respectively, leaving medals to athletes from Italy and China.
Biles took home the gold medal in the individual vault event Saturday and did not qualify as an individual competitor on the uneven bars, where Lee won bronze.
Biles also won the gold medal in the individual all-around competition—making her the third woman in the history of the Olympics to ever win it twice—and as a member of Team USA, which bested Italy and Brazil for the top prize.
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Crucial Quote
“I don’t wanna compete with Rebeca no more—I’m tired,” Biles told reporters of her rival after the individual all-around competition “She’s way too close.”
Big Number
18. That’s how many medals Larisa Latynina, who competed for the Soviet Union in the late 1950s and early 1960s, won to be the female gymnast with the most Olympic medals of all time. Biles is tied with Czechoslovakia’s Věra Čáslavská for second place with 11 medals each.
Key Background
Paris was widely called Biles’ “redemption” Olympics after she withdrew in the middle of the Tokyo games, citing the “twisties”—a mental block that causes a gymnast to lose track of their skills in the air. She was favored to sweep a number of gold medals that year but instead won only a bronze on balance beam and a silver as a member of Team USA. At the Rio Olympics in 2016, Biles won five gold medals in the team, all-around, vault, balance beam and floor competitions. In addition to Biles’ wins and the team gold, American gymnast Suni Lee won two bronze medals (in the individual all-around and uneven bars) and Jade Carey won bronze on vault.
Surprising Fact
Biles was expected to have a fifth skill named for her at the Olympics, but never performed the move while competing on uneven bars. The skill would have seen her perform a clear hip circle forward with 1.5 turns into a handstand. If she’d completed it at the games, Biles would have been the first gymnast to have a move named after her on all four gymnastics events.
Further Reading
Mary Roeloffs is a Forbes reporter who covers breaking news with a frequent focus on the entertainment industry, streaming, sports news, publishing, pop culture and climate change. She joined Forbes in 2023 and lives in Dallas. She’s covered Netflix’s hottest documentaries, a surge of assaults reported on social media, the most popular books of the year and how climate change stands to impact the way we eat. Roeloffs was included on Editor & Publisher Magazine’s “ 25 Under 30” list in 2023 and worked covering local news in the greater Boston area from 2017 to 2023. She graduated with a double major in political science and journalism from Northeastern University. Follow Roeloffs for continued coverage of streaming wars, pop culture news and trending topics.
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