DNA
PARIS – It definitely was not the ending Simone Biles was expecting as she was surprisingly upstaged in the floor exercise final by Brazilian gymnast Rebeca Andrade — but a silver medal on Monday capped the American’s remarkable Olympic comeback.
Stepping out of bounds with both feet at the end of two of her four tumbling passes meant she missed out on the top prize in the floor final, with the sixth tenths of a point penalty she incurred making the difference between gold and silver. That did not stop Biles from earning an 11th Olympic medal. She also proved to be the ultimate team player as she whopped with joy and hugged Jordan Chiles tightly after her friend was promoted from fifth to the bronze-medal position following a successful enquiry submitted by the Americans right at the end of the competition.
Biles, the most decorated gymnast in history, admitted that exhaustion had started to set in on the final day of a gruelling competition. “Obviously wasn’t my best performances but at the end of the day, whoever medalled, medalled,” she said. “And that’s what’s so exciting, because you just never know with gymnastics. So I’m not very upset or anything about my performance at the Olympics. I’m actually very happy, proud and even more excited that it’s over.”
Biles was heavily favoured coming into the final given the difficulty of her high-flying floor routine but paid a heavy price for those mistakes as she lost out on winning a fourth gold medal of these Games. Andrade claimed the top prize for producing a near flawless, albeit less difficult, display which was rewarded with a score of 14.166 from the judges. Biles’ routine got off to a promising start when she nailed her triple twisting double back but the power she generates during the tumbling sequences left her completely stepping out of bounds on her next attempt. She again found herself out of the marked area on her final pass.
The flawed performance left her anxiously looking up at the scoreboard and when her mark of 14.133 flashed up, she found her name below Andrade’s on the standings. She lost the gold medal by just 0.033 of a point.Proving there were no hard feelings, a beaming Biles then joined Chiles in hailing the new Olympic floor exercise queen.
The American duo turned to face Andrade and then bowed to her from the lower platforms of the podium as the Brazilian stepped up accept her prize with her arms raised high — a moment that quickly went viral.”She’s so amazing. She’s a queen,” Biles said of Andrade, who had finished runner-up to Biles in the all-around and vault finals.”First, it was an all Black podium, so that was very exciting for us. But then Jordan was like, should we bow to her? And I was like, absolutely.”
Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen retained his Olympic badminton title on Monday, demolishing Thailand’s world champion KunlavutVitidsarn in the men’s singles final in Paris.Backed by a vocal crowd of Danish fans at La Chapelle Arena, the second-seeded Axelsen battled past his eighth-seeded opponent 21-11, 21-11 in 52 minutes.
The lanky Dane became the first man to retain his Olympic men’s singles title since Chinese legend Lin Dan, who won in 2008 and 2012.After clinching the title, he grabbed a Danish flag and tore around the arena. Vitidsarn’s silver was Thailand’s first-ever Olympic medal in badminton.Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia took bronze after beating India’s Lakshya Sen 13-21, 21-16, 21-11. China topped the badminton medals table for a seventh straight Olympics, winning golds in the mixed and women’s doubles.Taiwan won men’s doubles and South Korea’s An Se-young took gold in women’s singles.
