Simone Biles set to return for balance beam event to conclude her Tokyo Games

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Washington Post

TOKYO — U.S. gymnastics star Simone Biles plans to perform in Tuesday’s balance beam final, USA Gymnastics announced Monday evening. Biles withdrew from the team final after one rotation, citing the need to prioritize her mental health, and she subsequently decided not to compete in the all-around competition or the apparatus finals for vault, bars and floor. The beam final is Biles’s final opportunity to perform in Tokyo, and her competitive future after these Games remains unclear.

Biles entered the Tokyo Olympics as one of the highest-profile athletes in the world, and she was expected to earn up to five gold medals. The mental toll of those external pressures became too much to handle, she said after the team final, and it began to affect her gymnastics. During Biles’s lone appearance in the team final, she became lost in the air on her vault, stalling midway through. She explained what happened afterward as “having a little bit of the twisties.” That term refers to when a gymnast loses her sense of air awareness.

Sometimes she might twist when she had not intended to or she might not complete the proper number of twists. Biles said the twisties had affected her on every apparatus since she arrived in Tokyo. On beam, however, Biles’s routine does not include many twisting elements. Her dismount is a double-twisting double tuck, but even if she chooses to perform a simpler skill instead, she could still be a medal contender.

For Biles, this routine might be less about a medal and more about ending her time in Tokyo on a positive note. In the qualifying round, Biles earned the seventh-highest score on beam (14.066) after she took several steps backward out of her dismount. At the 2016 Games, Biles won a bronze on beam in addition to four golds in other finals. She is a three-time world champion on the apparatus.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/08/01/tokyo-olympics-2021-live-updates-highlights-day-10/#link-3ZSUK7TH3FHWTFAXTUP6MDTN4I

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Short Olympics "update" article (latest update now added) but the team's twitter feed included this -

Link to tweet

TEXT

USA Gymnastics
@USAGym
We are so excited to confirm that you will see two U.S. athletes in the balance beam final tomorrow - Suni Lee AND Simone Biles!! Can’t wait to watch you both!
4:30 AM · Aug 2, 2021

EDIT - Update article has further info and is now included. Original article -

Simone Biles plans to compete in balance beam final

Simone Biles plans to compete in Tuesday’s balance beam final to conclude her Tokyo Olympics. Biles, widely considered the world’s best gymnast, is set to return for the last event of the Olympic meet after withdrawing from several events to prioritize her mental health. The 24-year-old exited last week’s team competition after one rotation in the final, then skipped the all-around final and the first three apparatus finals before deciding to return. Follow along for live updates from the Games.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/08/01/tokyo-olympics-2021-live-updates-highlights-day-10/

[hlthe2b]

1. Well, that one is going to be a nail-biter. I wish her the very best.

[AngryOldDem]

6. Agreed.

I’m a little surprised at this because to me the beam has little to no margin for error.

[LisaL]

8. Apparently she can't do twisting moves.

Which on the beam comes during the dismount. But she can do a simpler dismount without twisting.

[onetexan]

15. Thats corrwct. Her teammate Mykayla was saying this on Today show

As well that Simone's been practicing pike landings instead of the twisting variety. I hope for her physical safety & mental wellbeingthat this GOAT will come out on top, but at this point she's done it all & has nothing to prove. Great good came out of this devastating situation in that Suni & rest of their teammates were able to step up & deliver awesomely & courageously w medals. Mykayla would not have her chance of a lifetime silver medal otherwise. I've been on pins &needles for all the girls, & now w Simone's final closure of her olympics career. Bittersweet for her im sure but her health & happiness ab9ve all is paramount.

[TNNurse]

7. I know she knows best about her status,

but I am afraid to watch. I respect and admire this young woman so much.

[SallyHemmings]

14. Me too!

I will pray for her safety.

[Celerity]

2. K & R for visibility

[PoliticAverse]

3. Best wishes to her. MyKayla Skinner (who was out of the games) filled in for Biles in the vault

yesterday.

[LisaL]

9. Not just filled, won a silver medal.

NT

[onetexan]

16. yup, & it pisses me off that she & Jade Carey are not formally a part of the team

That rule is so unfair to athletes who've worked so hard to get selected, & so unpopular they are doing away w it in 2024. Jade & Mykayla have done fabulous jobs bringing home medals for the team. This is just ludicrous how badly they're being treated.

[Slammer]

17. unfair

Yeah, it's very unfair. But after the USSR block fell apart, fewer and fewer countries kept putting in the money to field a massive gymnastics program. So teams have shrunk over the years because there's not enough countries that can field competitive large teams. (And most countries don't want to give out the team medal to the same country which can afford a large team every Olympics.)

I think it shrank from 9 members a number of Olympics ago to 7 to 5 and now to the Olympics, only four.

There's not really a solution other than to make women's gymnastics insanely popular in lots of other countries then make all of those countries richer.

[onetexan]

18. I disagree. To me the best gymnasts should be allowed to

Compete for the all-around, regardless of the country theyre representing. Our B-list is better than most.

[underpants]

4. Best wishes. I have to say that Suni Lee really stepped up to win the overall

I knew how it ended but some of the people I watched with didn’t. Great night of sports for all.

[oasis]

5. My wishes are for her mental and physical well being, no matter how

well she performs on Tuesday.

[keithbvadu2]

10. This is the scariest one to me.

This is the scariest one to me.
I can just imagine falling and planting my teeth in that wooden beam.
Not to mention breaking various body parts on that solid wood.

[lark]

12. My daughter was in the Jr. Olympics program and the bar is the reason she went to diving.

One time she fell on her neck and off the beam. I was so terrified, I was crying as I ran to the floor. She has a sprained neck, but it could have been so much worse. When she got to the point where she was going to have to do the blind moves, it got to be too much for her.

[lark]

11. I pray she does OK on the dismount or picks another type of dismount for this event.

Her health comes first.

[Jilly_in_VA]

13. Balance beam

has few twisting moves, other than her dismount, which she can modify. No flying through the air. Hopefully she's got this.

[Rocknation]

19. And hopefully the judges won't shave their scores of her enough

to knock her off the podium.

UPDATE: She got the bronze. Hooray for her -- and me.


rocktivity