I'm Alice Park reporting from Berci Arena on the last
day of gymnastics competition at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games
and the last day was full of drama and lots
of
ups and downs. It all started on balance beam where
four out of the 8 gymnasts fell off the balance
beam resulting in automatic deductions to their score and that
included both Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee.
Losing those points put both Biles.
Out of metal contention, Biles finished fifth and Lee finished
6th.
Then came the floor exercise.
Biles and her teammate Jordan Childs were the two gymnasts
from the US competing on this event final.
Biles performed both of her two moves that are named
after her on floor,
but stepped out of bounds on two of her 4
tumbling passes that cost her 6/10 of a point.
Had she not stepped out of bounds,
she would have earned gold over Brazil's Rebecca Andrade.
Childs was the last to compete and all eyes were
on her.
She performed another solid routine and when she was done,
her scores came up and put her in 5th place.
However, her coaches put in an inquiry and questioned the
calculation of her difficulty score,
the one that reflects how many skills she performs.
The score was changed and she gained 110th of a
point,
enough to pull her from 5th to 3rd place,
which gave her bronze. Overall,
Team USA earned 10 medals in Paris in gymnastics.
Let's break them down. The men earned bronze in the
team event,
the first time that they reached the podium in that
event in 16 years.
And of course, Steven Netarosic,
known around the world as the pommel horse guy,
won bronze on the pommel horse event.
The women earned gold in the team event and Simone
Biles and Sunisa Lee won gold and bronze in the
all around competition.
In the event finals, Simone Biles and Jade Carey went
gold and bronze in the vault.
Suneissa Lee won bronze in the uneven bars and Simone
Biles.
And Jordan Charles won gold and bronze in the floor
exercise.
Overall, Bile said she was very proud of how the
US gymnastics team has performed here in Paris.
In particular, the women on the team have overcome their
own personal challenges to be here.
Four of the five members of the women's team had
competed in Tokyo and called this their redemption tour.
And now that the competition is done,
they feel both redeemed and proud of what they've shown
in the world.