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Simone Biles' Final Floor Routine Was Near Perfect

by Amée LaTour

After her final 2016 Olympics event on Aug. 16, Simone Biles secured four gold medals for vault, team all-around, individual all-around, and floor exercise, and one bronze for beam. Viewers anticipated a stunning performance at the individual floor event, and Biles delivered, predictably clinching the gold. How close did she come to nailing the routine? According to the judges, very close. Biles got a near-perfect score for her final women's floor performance.

The maximum score Biles could have gotten for her floor routine was 16.9. That's a combination of the 6.9-point difficulty score of the routine and the 10-point execution scale. Judges tally up gymnasts' scores by deducting error points from their maximum score. At the final floor event, Biles scored 15.966, meaning she was deducted 0.934 from the maximum possible score.

Biles went into Tuesday's event fresh off a disappointing beam performance on Aug. 15. Now, this is Biles we're talking about — for her, "disappointing" means she "only" took bronze, since she placed two hands on the beam while correcting for an error. She shook that off quickly, which was clear on the floor, where she gave a joyous and vibrant performance that put her back in the gold medal spot on the podium.

LAURENT KALFALA/AFP/Getty Images

Biles' final performance featured four passes, including her signature double layout with a half turn, during which she achieved almost gravity-defying height. Only a few bounces on landings and a couple slight wobbles could be picked out of the routine, accounting for the small deduction from her would-be perfect 16.9 score.

Biles made history on her final day of competition in Rio, becoming the first female U.S. gymnast to earn four gold medals in a single Olympics. And she had the pleasure of standing on the podium next to team captain Aly Raisman, who took silver. Raisman's floor performance included a stunning double Arabian pass and several perfectly-stuck landings. She came in behind Biles with a 15.5 score.

With strong performances throughout the women's gymnastics events, Biles finished with a bang on Tuesday. The 2016 Olympics may be over for Biles, but this isn't likely her final stint at the Games. At 19 years old, we could feasibly see Biles again in Tokyo in 2020. Whatever she does from here on out, Biles has already made history with near-perfect performances and four golds to show for them from her first Summer Games.