Simone Biles and the women’s gymnasts at Bercy Arena. The hiccup happened during her return to compete in gymnastics

It is perhaps the trickiest apparatus in women’s gymnastics. Athletes must pack as many skills as they can into a 90-second routine — back handsprings, one-legged turns, flips, jumps and leaps, all performed on an apparatus just four inches wide.

Simone Biles made her return to competitive gymnastics in 2023. Since then, she has looked dominant. In Paris, she helped propel the U.S. to a massive win in the team event, and then staged a comeback to win the gold medal. She won the gold medal in the vault final on Saturday after performing the most difficult vault in women’s gymnastics, named after her.

In the balance beam final, a flip layout midway through the routine was not in line with what had been planned, and that’s when Biles fell to the mat. Ultimately, her score of 13.1 was not enough to earn her a medal.

Many of the other competitors in the final fell badly on the balance beam; it was one of those days. Italy’s Alice D’Amato, one of the few to perform her routine without a major error, took the gold. China’s Zhou Yaqin won the silver medal while Italy’s Manila Esposito won the bronze.

“Balance beam is a very uncertain and unforgiving event.” Mistakes happen all the time,” Zhou said afterward. The nature of balance beam and the high pressure are what caused the stumbles.

A bad fall on Monday’s beam final cost Suni Lee her chance at a medal. There was a lot of pressure, that’s what it was. “It was so crazy to see how everyone was going down,” Lee said.

Lee said that the gymnasts at Bercy Arena were shushing the crowd when they tried to cheer for their competitors. You could probably hear me breathing when I was up there. She said that it added to the stress.

The falls seeped into the men’s events, too. More than half the competitors in the horizontal bar final slipped off the bar or fell during their dismount.

What’s next for a 21-year-old gymnast after winning a medal at the Olympic Games, or why we shouldn’t ask them what is next?

At 27, Biles is already older than most elite female gymnasts. No competitor who faced the 21-year-old gymnast on Monday was older than 25. Most of them were in their teens.

She said “You guys really should stop asking athletes what’s next after winning a medal at the Olympics.” (When one user asked what her next step would be after Paris, Biles replied: “babysitting the medal.”)

Biles has not said whether she intends to retire from gymnastics now that her Olympic run has ended. She chastised journalists for asking.

Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade won the floor exercise gold medal, which was one point less than it should have been, due to thedisqualification of USA’s Simone X for stepping out of bounds. Jordan Chiles won a bronze medal in gymnastics.