Tokyo (AFP)
After a nightmare week, Simone Biles, even still weakened, showed her strength of character: the American gymnastics superstar offered herself a bronze medal on the beam, her last chance, at the Tokyo Olympics on Tuesday .
"To those who say that I give up. I do not give up, my mind and body are simply not in sync," wrote on social media Friday the one considered to be the greatest gymnast of all time to explain the torments which prevented her from competing on the Tokyo apparatus for a week.
That she does not give up, Biles (24) provided proof on Tuesday.
Yes, the quadruple Olympic champion 2016 proposed a simplified exercise, without a spin on exit, replaced by a double somersault.
But the Texan gymnast nevertheless climbed on the podium of the last women's final by apparatus, behind the Chinese duo Guan Chenchen (14.633) and Tang Xijing (14.233).
“I was a little nervous for the exit because I haven't done a double back pike since I was 12,” she smiles.
But "being able to compete in the Olympics again meant everything to me."
Chinese double on the beam podium with Xijing Tang and Chenchen Guan (gold) alongside Simone Biles (bronze), at the Tokyo Games, August 3, 2021 Lionel BONAVENTURE AFP
- Congratulated by Thomas Bach -
A tour de force when we know the terrible week that the American champion has just experienced, greeted in person by the President of the International Olympic Committee Thomas Bach, installed in the first row and then descended to the edge of the carpet.
Last Tuesday, Biles, qualified for the six finals of women's artistic gymnastics, had given up the general amazement to continue the all-around team competition after a single jump, poorly controlled.
In front of the journalists, she then explained that she no longer had "as much confidence (in herself) as before" and to be confronted with the phenomenon of "twisties", or "loss of face", namely a loss of landmarks in space, all the more dangerous given the extreme difficulty of its exceptional acrobatics.
"Queen Simone" Biles congratulated by IOC President Thomas Bach at the end of his beam competition at the Tokyo Games, August 3, 2021 Lionel BONAVENTURE AFP
"I must do what is good for me and not compromise my health and my well-being," she had assumed.
Then, over the next few days, she had successively given up the finals of the individual all-around, vault, uneven bars and floor.
She had posted, too, a video showing her falling on bars in practice.
"Physically, I wouldn't have been able to make the other finals without putting myself in danger, because there are spins, and I would have continued to get lost in the air and crash", she explains.
Obviously, Biles, heralded for months as "THE" upcoming star of the Tokyo Games, with a lot of magazine covers and TV spots, is leaving the Olympic scene far from her initial ambitions.
With team silver and bronze on the beam, the record of nine Olympic gold medals for Soviet Larissa Latynina, who seemed within reach, remains a long way off.
Factsheet on Simone Biles, who won team silver and individual bronze on balance beam at the Tokyo Games John SAEKI AFP
- "No words" -
But having overcome her current difficulties to invite herself somehow on the podium, we can imagine that the one who was already an icon of world sport, in particular for having crossed swords with her federation in the Nassar affair, from name of the doctor convicted of sexual assault on dozens of American gymnasts, will come out even greater in the eyes of the whole world.
Tuesday afternoon, before the start of the competition, Biles warmed up quietly with compatriot Sunisa Lee and repeated his movement without a spin.
Before his passage, we saw him sketch it again, while applauding the first competitors.
Her turn came, Cécile Landi, who has been training her with her husband Laurent since 2017, accompanied her until the last moment.
It was also in his arms that she fell once her exercise was successful.
Superstar gymnast Simone Biles competing on balance beam at Tokyo Games, August 3, 2021 Loic VENANCE AFP
But it was ultimately without effusion, despite the ten cameras and cameras pointed at her, that she welcomed this bronze "softer" than that of Rio.
"No words to say how proud I am of you Simone," admired her coach on social networks.
How does she see the rest?
"I have to digest these Olympics, I don't have Paris (2024) in mind at all, Biles replies. There are so many things I have to work on first."
© 2021 AFP