Gymnasts have a saying: “I just want to go four for four.” It means getting through all four events in an all-around competition without any major mistakes, and gymnasts claim it’s more important to them than the scores or rankings.
Simone Biles had gone three for three in the first week of the Olympics, picking up team, all-around and vault gold. But her hopes of adding a fourth gold on the balance beam ended when Biles got off balance on a front flip and had to grab the beam to hold on.
The big deductions for Biles’ error left her with a score of 14.733 and ultimately with a bronze medal.
The gold medalist was Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands, who didn’t have the high-powered tumbling skills of the American medalists but shone with a mix of tricky spins and leaps to maximize her score. With the highest difficulty score of the final and the second-highest execution score, Wevers scored 15.466 to win the first Olympic individual medal of any color for a Dutch female gymnast.
Laurie Hernandez of the U.S. finished second. The 16-year-old just entered the senior ranks of competition this year. On this day exactly a year ago, Hernandez won the all-around title in the junior division of the national championships.
The final rankings were:
1. Sanne Wevers: 15.466
2. Laurie Hernandez: 15.333
3. Simone Biles: 14.733
4. Flavia Saraiva:
5. Marine Boyer: 14.600
6. Fan Yilin: 14.500
7. Catalina Ponor: 14.000
8. Isabela Onyshko: 13.4000