May 26, 2024

What to watch for when Simone Biles competes on balance beam.

The women’s gymnastics events in Tokyo will wrap up on Tuesday with the balance beam final, and Simone Biles will be competing for the first time since withdrawing from the team final a week ago.

It is the last shot at an individual medal for Biles, who qualified for every final but pulled out of the all-around, vault, uneven bars and floor exercise because of a mental block that she said prevented her from competing safely.

She will be up against her teammate Sunisa Lee, who won gold in the all-around and bronze on bars; Guan Chenchen and Tang Xijing of China, who were first and second on beam in the qualifying round; and Larisa Iordache of Romania, who is looking for redemption after years of injuries.

How to watch in the United States

  • LIVE: The competition begins Tuesday at 4:50 a.m. Eastern time and can be livestreamed via the NBC Olympics site, Peacock or the NBC Sports app.

  • TAPE DELAY: Many fans will prefer to stream a replay or watch the tape-delayed broadcast on NBC at 8 p.m. Eastern time.

Biles, 24, will be competing in her only apparatus final at these Games, and it’s not clear if she will do the same routine she did in the qualifying round, which had a huge difficulty score, 6.5. That would make her a strong medal contender if she avoided the large stumble she had on her full-twisting double back dismount. Because her mental block relates to twisting, though, she may switch to a double pike dismount, which would lower her difficulty by 0.4.

Lee, 18, said before the Olympics that she wanted to win a medal on beam, and she might: She had the third-highest score, 14.2, in the qualifying round. But with so many strong gymnasts in the final, she has no room for error. She didn’t quite match her qualifying mark in the team final, scoring 14.133, and she scored 13.833 in the all-around final after nearly losing her balance on her first skill.

Biles and Lee are up against six other competitors. Chenchen, 16, qualified first, and is in Tokyo because of her beam routine — she won the World Cup series on beam to make the Olympics as an individual, separate from the Chinese team. She blew the rest of the field away with a score of 14.933, thanks largely to a difficulty score nearly half a point higher than that of any other qualifier.

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