PARIS: US gymnastics superstar Simone Biles polished off a redemptive Paris Olympics campaign with a floor exercise silver on Monday, shrugging off a balance beam fall to finish runner-up to Brazilian Rebeca Andrade.

Biles went into the final day of competition with a chance to push her tally of Paris gold to a record-setting five in one Games.

She had already led the United States to team gold, regained the all-around cro­wn she first won as part of a four-gold haul in Rio in 2016 and soared to vault gold.

She couldn’t find her way back to the top of the podium on Monday, but Biles said she’d leave Paris proud of all four of the medals that took her career total to eleven.

“Today has been absolutely wild,” Biles said, adding that she was “actually very happy, proud and even more excited that it’s over”.

“I’ve accomplished way more than my wildest dre­a­ms not just at this Olympics but in the sport,” said Biles, who owns a jaw-dropping 41 world and Olympic medals — 30 of them gold.

Two out-of-bounds errors proved costly in Biles’ otherwise breathtaking final floor routine. Andrade had already moved into first place with an energetic and elegant performance that garnered 14.166 points.

Biles earned 14.133 for silver ahead of team-mate Jo­r­dan Chiles, who took bronze with 13.766. Chiles’ score was upgraded after a review of her degree of difficulty, a devastating blow for Romania’s Ana Barbosu who thought she had bag­g­ed bronze with 13.700.

Biles finished fifth in beam, where Alice D’Amato became the first Italian woman gymnast to claim Olympic gold with a score of 14.366. Team-mate Manila Esposito joined D’Amato on the podium in third, with China’s Zhou Yuqin taking silver.

Japan’s Shinnosuke Oka nabbed his third gold of the Games, adding the horizontal bar gold to his team and all-around titles. In another apparatus final littered with mistakes, Oka edged 17-year-old Colombian Angel Barajas.

They finished with the same score of 14.533 but Oka, 20, pocketed the gold thanks to a higher score for execution. There was nothing to separate China’s Zhang Boheng and Taiwan’s Tang Chia-Hung, who shared bronze on 13.966.

Oka added a fourth medal, bronze, in a parallel bars final won by China’s defending champion Zou Jingyuan. Zou scored a massive 16.200 points to retain the title he won in Tokyo in emphatic style, adding a first Paris gold to his team and rings silvers. Ukraine’s Illia Kovtun took silver with 15.500 points ahead of Oka’s 15.300.

American great Vincent Hancock fell agonisingly short of a fifth Olympic gold after the Italian pair of Gabriele Rossetti and Diana Bacosi won the final shooting competition of the Olympics in the inaugural mixed team skeet event.

Hancock teamed up with Austen Smith, but had to settle for silver following their 45-44 loss.

China won bronze after Jiang Yiting combined with Lyu Jianlin for a 44-43 win against the Indian pair of Maheshwari Chauhan and Anant Jeet Singh Naruka.

Li Yuehong supplied the final gold of China’s shooting haul in the men’s 25 metres rapid fire pistol with a comfortable 32-25 win against silver medallist Cho Yeong-jae of South Korea.

Li’s compatriot Wang beat Germany’s Florian Peter in a shoot-off to make the podium.

AXELSEN RETAINS TITLE

Denmark’s Viktor Axel­sen retained his Olympic badminton title by demolishing Thailand’s world champion Kunlavut Vitid­sarn in less than an hour in the singles finals.

Axelsen surged past his eighth-seeded opponent 21-11, 21-11 in 52 minutes.

The lanky Dane became the first man to retain his Olympic men’s singles title since Chinese legend Lin Dan, who won in 2008 and 2012.

Kunlavut’s silver was Thailand’s first-ever Olym­pic medal in badminton.

Malaysia’s Lee Zii Jia took bronze after beating India’s Lakshya Sen 13-21, 21-16, 21-11. China topped the badminton medals table for a seventh straight Olympics, winning golds in the mixed and women’s doubles. Taiwan won men’s doubles and South Korea’s An Se-young took gold in women’s singles.

FOX, BUTCHER TAKE CANOE GOLDS

Australia’s Noemie Fox followed in her sister’s footsteps to pick up the Olympic gold medal in women’s kayak cross, with Finn Butcher of New Zealand winning the men’s event.

Fox’s sister Jessica secured the first two golds in canoe and kayak slalom on the whitewater course, and her younger sibling made it a family affair when she came out on top in a thrilling decider.

Angele Hug took silver for France and British world number one Kimberley Wo­ods took silver, the first Olympic medals to be handed out in the discipline as it made its debut at the Paris Games.

In the men’s race, top-ranked Briton Joe Clarke had to be content with silver after getting caught up in traffic early on, allowing Kiwi Butcher to move ahead, where he stayed until he crossed the finish line. Germany’s Noah Hegge came third to take the bronze.

Britain’s women blazed to gold in the track cycling team sprint as they powered to victory against New Zealand in the final at the National Velodrome.

Katy Marchant, Sophie Capewell and Emma Finucane set a new world record for the third time on an astonishing evening as individual world champion Finucane led them home.

They clocked 45.186 seconds in the final with New Zealand’s trio of Rebecca Petch, Shaane Fulton and Ellesse Andrews finishing in 45.659. World champions Germany had to be content with the bronze medal after beating the Netherlands.

Defending Olympic champions China were a disappointing sixth.

LYLES clinches 100M

Late on Sunday, Noah Lyles of the US won an enthralling and dramatic 100 metres final by fractions of a second in a time of 9.79. Kishane Tho­mpson of Jamaica took the silver in the same time and Lyles’ compatriot Fred Kerley claimed bronze in 9.81.

Lyles made a slower start out of the blocks than his rivals but accelerated through the finish to clinch victory by five thousandths of a second.

Ukraine’s Yaroslava Mahuchikh completed her trophy cabinet with the women’s high jump gold medal, clearing 2.00 metres. Australian Nicola Olyslagers took silver and Ukraine’s Iryna Gerash­chenko and Australian Eleanor Patterson shared the bronze.

Canada’s Ethan Katz­berg won gold in the men’s hammer throw. Katzberg, 22, asserted himself with a first throw of 84.12 metres, and none of his rivals could respond. Hungary’s Bence Halasz won silver with 79.97 and Ukraine’s Mykh­aylo Kokhan won bronze with 79.39.

Medals table

(Tabulated under country, gold, silver, bronze and total)
China 21 17 14 52
USA 19 29 27 75
Australia 13 11 8 32
France 12 15 18 45
Great Britain 11 13 17 41
South Korea 11 8 7 26
Japan 10 5 11 26
Italy 9 10 6 25
Germany 6 5 4 15
Netherlands 6 5 4 15
Canada 5 4 8 17
New Zealand 3 5 1 9
Hungary 3 3 2 8
Romania 3 3 1 7
Ireland 3 0 3 6
Ukraine 2 2 3 7
Croatia 2 1 1 4
Belgium 2 0 3 5
Hong Kong 2 0 2 4
Azerbaijan 2 0 0 2
Philippines 2 0 0 2
Serbia 2 0 0 2
Israel 1 4 1 6
Spain 1 2 5 8
Georgia 1 2 1 4
Switzerland 1 1 4 6
Kazakhstan 1 1 2 4
South Africa 1 1 2 4
Guatemala 1 0 1 2
Algeria 1 0 0 1
Argentina 1 0 0 1
Chile 1 0 0 1
Dominica 1 0 0 1
Ecuador 1 0 0 1
Saint Lucia 1 0 0 1
Norway 1 0 0 1
Slovenia 1 0 0 1
Uganda 1 0 0 1
Jamaica 0 2 1 3
Kosovo 0 1 1 2
Turkey 0 1 1 2
Armenia 0 1 0 1
Colombia 0 1 0 1
Ethiopia 0 1 0 1
Fiji 0 1 0 1
Mongolia 0 1 0 1
Thailand 0 1 0 1
Tunisia 0 1 0 1
India 0 0 3 3
Tajikistan 0 0 3 3
Malaysia 0 0 2 2
Moldova 0 0 2 2
Austria 0 0 1 1
Cabo Verde 0 0 1 1
Cuba 0 0 1 1
Egypt 0 0 1 1
Grenada 0 0 1 1
Indonesia 0 0 1 1
Lithuania 0 0 1 1
Portugal 0 0 1 1
Slovakia 0 0 1 1

Updated to 11:30pm (PST)

Published in Dawn, August 6th, 2024