Simone Biles fell off the balance beam during the gymnastics finals at the Paris Olympics because the arena was too quiet.
“None of us liked it,” she said afterwards.
During her routine, Simone landed awkwardly and fell off the end of the beam.
She got back on the beam and finished her routine.
Simone was one of four gymnasts to fall off the beam during the unusually quiet and “weird” finals on Monday.
Simone and teammate Sunisa Lee are used to music and noise in the gym while they practice. Simone said the beam finals was “really weird and awkward.”
“The beam final is always the most stressful, but usually we have like, music or background noise, whatever that may be,” Simone said. “And honestly we do better in environments when there’s noise going on because it feels most like practice.”
She added: “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.”
“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,” Simone continued.
Italy’s Alice D’Amato won the gold in the balance beam. Simone finished 5th.
Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade won the gold medal in the floor final. Simone (left) won the silver, and teammate Jordan Chiles (right) took home the bronze.
Simone won 4 medals — including 3 gold — at the Paris Olympic Games. She has now won a total of 11 Olympic medals – 7 of them gold.
She is the second most decorated women’s gymnast of all time.
