Balance Beam, Women

Simone Biles was again the clear favourite and her quest to become the first woman to win five gold medals at one Olympics continued. The bronze medallist on the beam at the 2013 World championships, she won gold in 2014 and 2015 and was the highest placed qualifier in Rio. Just behind her, qualifying in second place, was her fellow American Laurie Hernandez, who only joined the senior US team in 2016. Had the two-gymnasts-per-country rule not applied, the US would have had four of the eight finalists because Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas both finished in the top eight qualifiers. Local Brazilian favourite Flávia Saraiva was on form going into the final and was third in qualifying.

Biles was third to go and started off magnificently as always but then, going for a forward somersault, she wobbled on landing on the beam and had to use both hands to hold on and stop herself slipping onto the floor. She was awarded 14.733 points, nearly a point less than her qualification mark, and her total was there to be beaten by the remaining five girls. The first to have a go at overhauling Biles was Sanne Wevers of Netherlands, the runner-up to Biles in the 2015 Worlds and winner of the Olympic Test Event in Rio, and she gave a near perfect performance including a triple, to score 15.466 and go well ahead at the top of the leader board, thus ending Biles’ dream of five golds.

Cătălina Ponor of Romania did nothing to change the medal positions with her 14.000, but Laurie Hernandez moved into the silver medal position above Biles with 15.333. Biles was now in danger of losing her bronze medal with Marine Boyer of France and Brazil’s Saraiva still to go, but the best either could muster was a 14.600 from Boyer, as Biles held on for bronze. Wevers became the first Dutch female gymnast to win an individual gold medal, only their second individual gold medal winner, after Epke Zonderland on the men’s horizontal bar at London 2012, and only their third gold medallist ever after their women won the all-round team competition in 1928. Whilst Wevers took gold, it turned out the only person capable of beating Simone Biles was herself as she proved she was not super-human after all.