Simone Biles Rips ‘Awkward’ Setup for Olympic Beam Final, Says ‘None of Us Liked It’

Kristen Wong | Aug 5, 2024

Jack Gruber-USA TODAY Sports

Simone Biles spoke out about the unnerving atmosphere during the women’s balance beam final at the Paris Olympics on Monday.

Biles was one of four gymnasts to fall off the beam during the penultimate women’s gymnastics event held inside Bercy Arena. The 11-time Olympic medalist failed to make the podium for the first time this summer and talked about the “weird” and “awkward” environment that may have rattled some nerves ahead of the final.

“The beam final is always the most stressful, but usually we have like, music or background noise, whatever that may be,” Biles said. “And honestly we do better in environments when there’s noise going on because it feels most like practice. So today, like, you could hear some of the Android ringtones going off, the photo clickers, whatever that was, and so you know you’re trying to stay in your zone, and then people start cheering and then the shushing gets louder. … I don’t know, it was really weird and awkward.”

Biles continued, “We’ve asked several times if we can have some music or some background noise. I’m not really sure what happened there, but yeah, not our favorite. None of us liked it.”

Biles, USA teammate Sunisa Lee, Brazil’s Julia Soares and Romania’s Sabrina Maneca-Voinea all fell off the beam at some point during their routines. Italy’s Alice D’Amato, by comparison, put together a mostly error-free performance on her way to winning gold. Biles finished with a score of 13.1, tied with Lee for fifth place.

True to Biles’s point, music appeared to be playing during the women’s gymnastics’ qualifying stages, team finals and all-around finals in Paris. However, the music was shut off during individual event finals. 

After missing out on the podium in the beam final, Biles closed out the Games with a silver medal finish in the floor final. She’ll be taking home four total medals from Paris, which includes three gold medals in the women’s team final, all-around final and vault final.