Floor Exercise, Women

Simone Biles was looking to become the fourth person to win a second gold in the women’s floor exercise, having earned the gold in 2016. As a six-time World Champion, most recently in 2023, she was the clear favorite. Other medal contenders were Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade (silver at the 2023 worlds) and defending champion Jade Carey. The 2021 World Champion, Mai Murakami, had since retired, while 2022 champion Jessica Gadirova was out with an ACL injury.

Biles led Andrade in qualifying, ahead of another American, Jordan Chiles. Defending champion Carey suffered a dramatic fall at the end of her exercise and received the 74th score. The final started with Andrade posting an exciting exercise, improving on her qualifying score with 14.166. This score was not approached by any of the other finalists, many of whom also suffered small penalties for stepping out of bounds. The next-to-last starter was Biles, whose difficulty score of 6.9 was a full point ahead of Andrade. Biles’ performance was not flawless, however, as she stepped out of bounds on two occasions. This cost her 0.6 points in penalties, which landed her at 14.133, narrowly behind the Brazilian. On the podium, silver medalist Biles and bronze medalist Chiles showed their respect for the Brazilian, bowing to her as she stepped up to receive her gold medal, making it one of the defining images of the Paris Games.

Unfortunately, the battle for the medals did not end there. Chiles had originally not been among the top three. Her score was 13.666, ranking her fifth. Chiles’ coach Cécile Canqueteau-Landi, however, had submitted an inquiry into her difficulty score. This had been accepted, and her score was raised by 0.1 to 13.766. This moved her ahead of two Romanians, Ana Bărbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, who had both scored 13.700. Due to a better execution score, Bărbosu had been ranked above her compatriot. After inquiry into Chiles’ score, the Romanian team filed an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), claiming the inquiry had been submitted outside of the one-minute deadline, and CAS ruled the inquiry was indeed made outside the deadline. The International Gymnastics Federation and the IOC followed the ruling by reinstating the original results and thus re-awarding Chiles’ bronze to Ana Bărbosu, who received it in her hometown on 16 August. The American gymnastics federation unsuccessfully tried to appeal to CAS, claiming the inquiry was made after 47 seconds. Andrade’s gold was her second after winning the vault in Tokyo, and Brazil’s third in gymnastics. Biles earned her 11th Olympic medal, and only her second silver.