Simone Biles has embellished her palmares with a bronze medal. In the final of the beam, she only had to tolerate the Chinese girls Chenchen Guan (gold) and Xijing Tang (silver). For Biles, it felt like a win after struggling with mental health issues.
All eyes and cameras in the Ariake Gymnastics Center were, of course, on Simone Biles. After the silver in the team final, the 24-year-old American with mental problems canceled almost all finals. Except for the beam. Could she still take the gold there?
She already performed an almost flawless exercise, but her difficulty was lower than usual. That was also reflected in the figures: 14,000 was the verdict. After her dismount, a huge weight was lifted off her shoulders. The sigh of relief was heard all over America.
Watch Simone Biles’ full exercise here:
It turned out not to be enough for the gold medal. Xijing Tang showed a great performance and turned at a high difficulty. Tang was in the lead for almost the entire game.
But nota bene a compatriot was still about that. Chenchen Guan, who was only 16 years old, was the last to be seen and performed a wonderful exercise. She was therefore rewarded with a score of 14,633. A lot of other girls (including Sunisa Lee) made a mistake and fell right off the beam.
Watch Chenchen Guan’s full exercise here:
