Simone Biles Wins Bronze Medal In Balance Beam At Tokyo Olympics

Simone Biles got to add another medal to her collection!

The 24-year-old gymnast won the bronze on Tuesday in balance beam, finishing behind China’s Guan Chenchen and Tang Xjing. This is the star athlete’s second medal at the Tokyo Games. She won the silver in the team all-around final after withdrawing from the competition following her vault routine.

Simone now has seven Olympic medals, tying Shannon Miller’s count for the most won by any American gymnast in history.

Her routine on the beam didn’t include any twists in the air and she replaced her dismount with a double pike. She beamed with pride following her routine and patted her heart as the crowd of teammates, opponent and officials cheered for Simone.

Simone told reporters following her win that she was nervous ahead of the routine but felt really good.

“I don’t get why people diminish silver and bronze,” she said, explaining that her bronze medal this time around felt “sweeter” than her bronze in Rio for balance beam.

“We have to focus on ourselves as humans. We lost touch of our human feelings sometimes. … I did this for me and me only,” she continued.

Simone Biles’ Bronze-Winning Balance Beam Routine In Photos

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The gymnast last Friday took to Instagram to share with her millions of fans what it’s like for her to suffer with a condition called “twisties” which causes her mind and body to not be in sync, leading to a potentially dangerous situation, especially for a gymnast.

The Olympian also reiterated the fact that she did not quit because of having a bad performance on the vault during the team finals last Tuesday, where she had the lowest score of her career at 13.766.

“I’ve had plenty of bad performances throughout my career and finished the competition. I simply got so lost my safety was at risk as well as a team medal,” she wrote.

“For anyone saying I quit. I didn’t quit, my mind and body are simply not in sync. As you can see [in the video]. I don’t think you realize how hard this is on hard/competition surface,” she captioned alongside a video of her falling on the dismount during practice. “Sometimes I can’t even fathom twisting. I seriously cannot comprehend how to twist. Strangest and weirdest thing as well as feeling,” she added.

Simone says that she’s experienced the “twisties” in the past, but it usually shows up only during floor and vault routines and doesn’t last more than 2 weeks. But during the Tokyo Olympics it has also “transferred to the bars and beam” right after the preliminary competition.

“By that time no an alternate was not allowed to be placed in my position for all your ‘know it alls.’ we have four on a team for a reason. I chose to not continue team competition in jeopardizing losing a medal (of any color) for the girls/us. Also, for my own safety and health,” Simone explained.

Tokyo Olympics: All Of Team USA’s Medal Winners

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