Tokyo 2020 – Simone Biles wins bronze in balance beam on return, Guan Chenchen takes gold

ByCoral Barry

Updated 03/08/2021 at 12:47 GMT

Biles had not been seen on the arena floor since pulling out of the women’s team final, with the American missing the individual floor, uneven bars and vault finals, but returned to secure a medal in the balance beam. You want it? We have it. Stream every Olympic event live on discovery+

USA star Simone Biles returned to action at Tokyo 2020 to win bronze in the women’s balance beam.

The Olympic legend had not competed since pulling out of the team event due to mental health reasons and had withdrawn from four subsequent individual events.

Biles was third up on the beam and was given a huge cheer as she prepared to go through her routine.

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Despite her crisis of confidence at these Games, the 24-year-old appeared composed as she began her routine with a triple squat spin.

Watch delighted Biles receive bronze medal on the podium after beam

Her back flip was solid and a split jump in cross position also landed well before the highly-anticipated dismount.

Biles has spoken at length about suffering from “the twisties”, but the American attacked her dismount with vigour, pulling off two back flips before cleanly landing a double pike somersault.

'Biles is back!' - Gymnastics superstar with stunning beam routine for bronze

Those in attendance roared in approval as Biles landed without incident and many would have thought the routine would have been enough to fire her ahead of China’s Xijing Tang, who scored 14.233.

But the judges did not see it that way as they returned a scorecard of 14.000, putting Biles in the silver medal position.

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A delighted and perhaps relieved Biles was hugged by her coach and did not appear too gutted by the prospect of a silver medal.

Before the scores had even been read out, Biles had turned her attention towards her USA team-mate Sunisa Lee – who had already won three medals at Tokyo 2020.

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“Confidence, Sunni, you got it,” Biles told Lee as she approached the beam. But it wasn’t to be for Lee as a bad stumble wrecked her chances of gold.

A visibly disappointed Lee scored 13.866 to go into fourth position. Biles was on course to place second until China's Chenchen Guan stepped up and stole the show to win gold and push the American star down into bronze medal position.

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