With new exercises and exultant victories, in public statements her rivals went so far as to speak of the challenge of simply meeting her on a court.

That return has been meritorious, with three gold medals, but Biles has not been able to be the level of ambition to achieve up to five more, one in the floor final and another in the balance beam in the finals that were disputed this Monday in the Bercy Arena.

The level set by the American is so high that a silver might seem a minor achievement, but it also gives more merit to the victory over Brazil's Rebeca Andrade, who had been nipping at her heels in previous events and whom she had praised as the gymnast who makes her suffer the most when they compete.

In the final photo, the image of Biles cheering Andrade, who has already won gold on vault in Tokyo, sounds like an extra prize. The two finish Paris with four medals, although Andrade's is the first gold and Bile's the first silver. Their Olympic total now stands at 11: seven golds, two silvers and two bronzes.

To the rhythm of Taylor Swift's 'Ready for it', Biles performed two exercises that bear her name, but she went out of bounds twice, falling 14,133 points short of Andrade's 14,166. Still, it was an American podium as she took silver and team-mate Jordan Chiles bronze.

The star also stumbled on a treacherous all-around balance beam, from which she slipped and fell, finishing fifth. Six of the eight finalists fell or had major errors in a suspenseful.

Alice D'Amato became the first Italian gymnast to win Olympic gold with a score of 14.366. It is the finest result ever recorded by an Italian female gymnast at the Olympic Games Teammate Manila Esposito joined her on the podium in third, while China's Zhou Yuqin took silver.

Horizontal and parallel bars

It was not the only event on Monday: in the men's horizontal bars, Japan's Shinnosuke Oka crowned his Olympic debut and gettinf his third gold of the Games. 

He got a disputed 14.533 points, which was also achieved by young Colombian Angel Barajas (17), but he took the gold thanks to his best performance. Barajas thus gave Colombia a historic achievement, the country's first Olympic medal in gymnastics. 

China's Zhang Boheng and Taiwan's Tang Chia-Hung shared the bronze by matching points and performance: 13.966 and 7.466. Tokyo Games defending champion Daiki Hashimoto failed to qualify for the final.

In other finals, China's Zou Jingyuan retained his parallel bars title in emphatic fashion, adding his first gold in Paris to his team and rings silver medals. He is a three-time world champion on parallel bars, and with 16,200 points, he became the second consecutive Olympic champion on this apparatus, having started Paris with a gold medal. Ukraine's Illia Kovtun took silver with 15,500 points, his first Olympic medal. and Japan's Shinnosuke Oka added bronze to his golds.