Simone Biles’s bid for a record five women’s gymnastics gold medals in Rio ended yesterday when the USA star was beaten into third place on the beam by Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands.
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Biles now has 17 world or Olympic medals and she is only 19.
The Netherlands has earned the first medal of any color in women’s gymnastics thanks to Sanne Wevers, who will leave Rio with a gold medal around her neck. She puts her hand on her stomach. When her score finally flashed up above, it was a 14.500.
After Biles began her routine in ominous fashion, she was within millimetres of falling off the apparatus when trying to perform one of the acrobatic elements, meaning the opportunity to top the podium once again slipped away.
“It’s scary and exciting and a little bit overwhelming”, she said. After a problematic routine, they smiled and talked before her score popped up: a 13.400. Now she will leave Rio with a team gold and individual silver.
“I don’t even think I was going to medal because I didn’t put our medal ceremony outfit on because 14.7 is not that good on beam”, she added. And she was bumped from her preliminary spot atop the standings by the next competitor, Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands, who was credited with a start value for the hard of her routine that was.100 higher than Biles’s. She has the best qualifying scores in both events.
It handed the 19-year-old her first defeat in a final of the apparatus since 2013. Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands captured gold with a highly artistic routine, while the 16-year-old American upstart Laurie Hernandez capped off her Olympic debut with the silver. Her dismount was smooth, with only a small hop backward upon landing. Biles didn’t live up to her own standard, one that has nothing to do with what she wears around her neck and everything with doing her gymnastics.
Sadly, she didn’t have to wait long. The score of 15.333 lifted her into silver with two competitors left.
Petrounias’ huge score would hold up through the remaining six gymnasts.
Wevers, at age 23 a specialist in nothing but the balance beam, took off in the final with an impeccable routine that scored 15,466 points. She has a chance to go five-for-five if she can win the individual beam and floor exercise events when the gymnastics competition closes out over the next two days.
At the end of the day, Flavia Saraiva of Brazil took the beam and wowed the home crowd. Wevers was stunning while working across the 4-inch slab of wood 4-feet off the ground, calling it the performance of her life, one that ended with a hug from Dutch King Willem-Alexander and a phone call from the prime minister. Hernandez, who helped the Americans to team gold last week, followed with a 15.333 to give the “Final Five” seven medals overall in Rio.
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No U.S. gymnast qualified for the eight-man event finals on rings or vault.
