The balance beam at the 2024 Paris Olympics made more than a few enemies today.
Monday’s Women’s Balance Beam Finals — the second to last gymnastics event Team USA competed in — featured not one but four athletes falling, including Team USA’s beloved all-around champs Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee. After their falls both Biles and Lee were shut out of medaling, much to commentator and fan dismay. Biles, the most decorated gymnast of all time, received a 13.1 placing her in fifth, while Lee, the Olympic all-around-champion in Tokyo, finished sixth.
“It was just crazy to kind of see how everybody was going down like that,” Lee told the New York Times. “I think it’s just because there’s just so much pressure, you could feel the tension in the room.”
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Many fans echoed her sentiment on X / Twitter. One user wrote, “That balance beam final was….insane? 6 gymnasts falling including suni and Simone, two gymnasts who fell making podium, and Rebecca, Suni and Simone all falling off the podium? Whack asf” The post garnered nearly 6,000 likes.
Commentator and former Team USA gymnast Laurie Hernandez felt similarly. During the broadcast, she made an offhand remark, “Not to be a silly goose, but can someone check the beam.” One user pointed out that they all fell on a similar part of the beam, inciting conspiracy theories about a loose beam.
Fans of Lee were particularly upset by the outcome as it was her last chance to earn another medal because she didn’t qualify for Floor Finals. One wrote, “god take suni lee’s pain from falling off the beam and give it to ME.” Another posted a video of an angry woman captioned, “Me and the beam that made suni fall.”
There’s always the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics for a balance beam comeback. Do you think Biles has one more Olympics in her?
