Simone Biles out of women’s team gymnastics final at Tokyo 2020

Simone Biles withdrew from the women’s gymnastics team final in dramatic circumstances due to a “medical issue” after her opening vault, leaving the American’s gold medal quest at the Tokyo Olympics in jeopardy.

Widely considered the greatest gymnast of all time, Biles misjudged her landing on the vault - an event she has so often dominated - and a score of 13.766 was the worst in the opening rotation.

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Biles was supposed to do an ‘Amanar’ - a vault that begins with a roundoff back handspring onto the vault followed by two-and-a-half twists. However, she appeared to change her mind during the jump and only did one-and-a-half twists and stumbled as she landed on the mat.

The 24-year-old, who had been chasing an unprecedented six gold medals in Tokyo, left the floor shortly afterwards with the US team’s medical trainer. When she returned a few minutes later, her right leg was wrapped and she took off her bar grips and hugged teammates Grace McCallum, Sunisa Lee and Jordan Chiles before putting on a tracksuit.

USA Gymnastics said Biles will be “assessed daily to determine medical clearance for future competitions” in a short statement.

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Biles remained on the floor to watch her teammates but the US were unable to defend their title without their star performer, finishing second to the ROC. Great Britain clinched a surprise bronze medal after a magnificent 14.033 from Amelie Morgan in the team’s final floor display.

Biles has qualified for every individual apparatus final and finished top of the all-around standings, but a series of uncharacteristic errors had nevertheless raised questions over her ability to repeat the same heights of Rio 2016 when she won four gold medals.

Afterwards, Biles said she was prioritising her mental health and intimated that she would not rush into a decision over her further participation at the Games. “I just felt it would be a little bit better to take a back seat and work on my mindfulness,” said Biles. “No injury, thankfully. That’s why I took a step back because I didn’t want to do something silly out there. I thought it was best if these girls took over. I knew they would be OK.

“It’s been really stressful these Olympic Games, not having an audience. It’s been a long week, a long Olympic process, a long year. We are just a little bit too stressed out. We should be out here having fun. I feel like I’m also not having as much fun and this Olympic Games I wanted it to be for myself and it felt like I was still doing for other people. It hurts my heart that doing what I love has been taken away from me to please other people.

“We are going to take it a day at a time. We have a morning off tomorrow so that will be a good mental rest. We will take it from there.”

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