PARIS, France — Alice D’Amato pulled off a surprise triumph in the women’s balance beam final at the Paris Olympics to become the first Italian woman to win a gold medal in a gymnastics event.
D’Amato beat out Team USA icons Simone Biles and Sunisa Lee and Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade to achieve the feat. She won with a score of 14.366, two-tenths of a point ahead of China’s Yaqin Zhou.
Italy’s Manila Esposito won bronze with a score of 14.000. It was a major step up for Esposito and D’Amato, who finished sixth and seventh in the qualifying event, respectively.
Biles, who won bronze medals in the balance beam event at the 2016 and 2020 Olympics, missed out on the podium and finished a distant fifth. She slipped off the beam during her routine in a rare mistake. Andrade finished fourth. Lee finished sixth.
D’Amato and Esposito won their first Olympic medal with a silver in the women’s artistic team event on July 30. It was Italy’s first medal in the event since the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics.
Italy won just five women’s gymnastics medals heading into the Paris Olympics. Monday’s result pushed Italy to eight medals in the category.
The last men’s gymnastics medal for Italy came in the 2004 Athens Olympics with a gold in the horizontal bar event. Over half of Italy’s 29 Olympic medals in gymnastics were won before 1932.
