(Paris) Italy’s Alice D’Amato became Olympic champion on the balance beam on Monday at the Paris Games, where American superstar Simone Biles failed to win a medal, finishing only fifth after a fall.
Alice D’Amato won with a score of 14.366 points, ahead of China’s Yaqin Zhou (14.100) and another Italian, Manila Esposito (14.000).
Wearing a blue and white leotard saturated with sequins, Biles waited for her score with a closed face before seeing the score of 13.100 appear on the screen, not enough to make it to the podium.
PHOTO AMANDA PEROBELLI, REUTERS
Simone Biles
This was not the only surprise of the day since the other favourite, the Brazilian Rebeca Andrade, failed to reach the podium.
Three years after her Tokyo Games, disrupted by the phenomenon of “twisties”, which made her lose her bearings in space, this is the first hitch in Paris for Biles. The 27-year-old American gymnast had signed a resounding comeback until then by winning three gold medals, in the team, individual all-around competition and vault.
He still has a chance to win a fourth title in the floor exercise final, the last competition of the competition on Monday afternoon.
If successful, she would win the eighth Olympic gold medal of her career, just one short of the record set by Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina, who won nine times between 1956 and 1964.