RIO DE JANEIRO — Simone Biles felt her right foot slip. Then her left.
As she reached down to steady herself on the balance beam – her first visible misstep during an astonishing Olympics that includes three gold medals and some of the most boundary pushing gymnastics ever – one thought ran through her head.
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“Wow, Simone, that’s five-tenths,” Biles said.
And that’s it. Nothing more. Sure, winning a record five gold medals in Rio de Janeiro would have been cool. Yet going 5 for 5 was always somebody else’s deal. It wasn’t hers. Her only regret in earning bronze during the beam final on Monday centered on those five seconds when she found herself scrambling trying to recover from a wobbly landing following a front flip.
“I’m not disappointed in the medal that I received because anyone would love to have a bronze at an Olympics Games,” Biles said. “But I’m disappointed in the routine that I did, and not so much the whole entire routine, just the front tuck, I guess. Because the rest of the routine was pretty good.”
Even if it wasn’t quite good enough to stand atop the podium for once. Her score of 14.733 ended up well behind the 15.466 for Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands and the 15.333 for teammate Laurie Hernandez. Biles won’t leave Brazil with five golds – something no female gymnast has ever done – and she’s totally OK with it.
“I think you guys want it more than I do,” Biles said matter of factly. “I just want to perform the routines that I practice.”
Biles will get one more shot Tuesday in the floor exercise final, where a victory would let her join Larisa Latynina, Vera Caslavska and Ecaterina Szabo as the only women to win four golds during an Olympic meet.
TRACK AND FIELD: Kenya’s David Rudisha won gold again in the 800 meters – but didn’t get a world record this time.
Rudisha pulled away from Algeria’s Taoufik Makhloufi and won in 1 minute, 42.15 seconds. Makhloufi ran an Algerian record of 1:42.61, and Clayton Murphy of the United States set a personal best of 1:42.93 for bronze.
The U.S. also picked up bronze medals in the women’s 3,000-meter steeplechase and the men’s pole vault.
In the pole vault, Brazil’s Thiago Braz da Silva upset defending champion Renaud Lavillenie of France with an Olympic record of 19-91/4. Lavillenie took silver at 19-71/4 and American Sam Kendricks won the bronze at 19-21/4.
Ruth Jebet of Bahrain broke away from the field early on the way to the steeplechase title, with Emma Coburn picking up the bronze for the U.S.
In the women’s hammer, Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland broke her own world record with a throw of 269-113/4.
Highly decorated Jamaican sprinter Veronica Campbell-Brown didn’t make it out of the first round of the 200 meters, finishing third in her heat.
WATER POLO: The U.S. women’s water polo team pushed around Brazil for most of the match, and Maggie Steffens, Kiley Neushul, Makenzie Fischer and Kaleigh Gilchrist scored two goals apiece in a 13-3 victory, as the Americans stretched their winning streak to 20 games.
FIELD HOCKEY: Germany scored two early goals and held on to beat the United States 2-1 in the women’s quarterfinals.
MEN’S VOLLEYBALL: The U.S. reached the quarterfinals by winning its third straight match to conclude pool play, dominating Mexico 25-23, 25-11, 25-19.
BEACH VOLLEYBALL: The U.S. team of Phil Dalhausser and Nick Lucena lost in three sets to Brazilian world champions Alison and Bruno in the men’s quarterfinals – 21-14, 12-21, 15-9.
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