China’s Zhou Yaqin seems a little shaky on her first two landings, and NBC’s Laurie Fernandez notes that she has bailed out of part of a combination. She later has to put two hands on the beam to steady herself, which in the eyes of the judges is nearly as bad as falling.

It’s a steady second half of the routine with a one-step hop on the landing. But she’s going to have to hope Biles, Lee and Andrade slip up if she’s to take gold.

The order: Zhou, Lee, Soares, Esposito, Maneca-Voinea, D’Amato, Biles, Andrade.

So we’ll see the co-favorite for gold in this event up first. Zhou Yaqin is 18, with a world championship silver medal on the beam. Repeating – she had the top score in qualifying and the top score posted on the beam in any competition here so far, at 14.866.

Another medal and another gold opportunity for the USA today: Austen Jewell Smith and Vincent Hancock will be in the mixed skeet final against Italy.

Back in Bercy Arena, we’re getting gymnast introductions, and you could probably hear the roar for Simone Biles in neighboring arrondissements.

Medal count update:

Zou just took China’s second gold medal of the morning, so that tie atop the gold medal rankings didn’t last long. It’s now China 21, USA 19. But South Korea claimed the badminton gold, so China couldn’t run that lead to three.

The balance beam is one of the few events with legit gold medal contenders from the two front-runners going head-to-head.

My latest projections are USA 39, China 35.

For total medals, which draw less interest in the rest of the world than they do in the USA, judging by media and social media chatter (as one should not), the projection is USA 123, China 87. At some point, I’ll have to do projections for France – they have 44 total medals now, not far behind China’s 49.

Women’s balance beam lineup

Zou Jingyuan (CHN) wins his second straight parallel bars gold

All-around champion Shinnosuke Oka of Japan swings through some impressive handstands and gets big air. His last big skill on the bars is a jump into a pike into a handstand … look, he’s very good. And his dismount was near perfect.

HAS to be at least bronze. Silver?

Germany’s Lukas Dauser took silver in Tokyo. He’s the 2023 world champion on this event. He’ll have to go big to beat Zou.

Ouch. He bangs into the bars as he swings downward. But the rest is otherworldly, aside from a hop on the landing.

He injured his bicep in June, so getting to this stage is an accomplishment in itself. He probably won’t top his qualification score of 15.166. Did he beat 15.1 to get on the podium? He doesn’t seem to think so, and we have a longer wait for the scores than we have for the previous gymnasts.

The score is …

The score is …

Come on, folks.

Difficulty 6.0, execution 7.7. That’s 13.700. I’d have to guess that his mishap also took out part of his planned routine.

One gymnast left – Vernaiev is guaranteed a medal.

China’s Zou Jingyuan is a boss. Almost every time he goes to a handstand, he immediately gets his body in a perfect line. He flings himself the length of the bars like a salmon jumping upstream, if a salmon could also get to a full vertical handstand. His dismount is nearly perfect as well.

NBC’s commentators believe this is the best routine of all time. It’s surely the best tonight.

Difficulty 6.9, execution 9.3. That’s a 16.200. That matches his score from qualification, and still, we could be forgiven for thinking he deserved even more.

Ukraine’s Oleg Vernaiev isn’t quite getting set on his handstands, and then he gets crossed up moving from bar to bar and spins out to land on the mat.

Like all gymnasts do even when they know they’ve made a mistake that will keep them from the podium, he goes over to get some chalk and hops right back up for a flawless final 20 seconds or so.

He finishes with 13.300.

All eyes now on Zou Jingyuan, the defending champion and by far the highest scorer in qualification.

Japan’s Wataru Tanigawa has a major bobble early in the routine, with his body leaning to about 2 o’clock before he managed to recover. He’ll have to be content with his gold in the team event. Poor guy.

Scores: 6.3 difficulty, 7.833 execution, 14.133. Fourth out of four with four to go.

Standings
15.500 Kovtun (UKR)
15.100 Zhang (CHN)
15.100 Arican (TUR)
14.133 Tanigawa (JPN)

Next up: Ukraine’s Oleg Vernaiev.

Turkey’s Ferhat Arican, the bronze medalist in this event in Tokyo, is trying a routine similar to Kovtun’s, but even the untrained eye can see a few flaws. His handstands are bent or curved, not straight. Will the difficulty score put him in contention?

He seems thrilled, and the crowd roars in appreciation. He makes a heart shape with his hands in response.

Difficulty 6.900, execution 8.200 – 15.100, tied with Zhang.

Next up, men’s all-around silver medalist Zhang Boheng. He does a dazzling leap, then springs all the way down the length of the bars from one end to the other.

He lands bent over with his head and chest down and takes a couple of moments to straighten out.

I would think what Zhang did was more difficult than what Kovtun did, but having attempted neither, I can’t say for sure.

Scores are in, and apparently, Zhang’s routine was simpler. His difficulty is 6.400, execution 8.700. That’s 15.100, a little under his previous efforts and well behind Kovtun, who bested his qualifying score here.

Ukrain’s Illia Kovtun builds suspense with long, firmly held handstands. He doesn’t do anything spectacular in the air, and he has as little hop on the dismount, but his form in switching positions on his handstands is fluid and confident.

It’s a 15.500 – 7.000 difficulty, 8.500 execution. That’ll contend for a medal.

There’s a nice ad for Hyundai airing in the USA about kids burning out on one sport and trying something else. It has multiple endings. I often see one with a young girl running off to play soccer with a big smile. Another ending features a boy fist-bumping as he walks into a breaking studio.

But every time my wife is in the room, it’s the latter.

This morning, it’s the soccer ending. I need to start recording it to prove to my wife that I’m not hallucinating.

The heavily inked Illia Kovtun is up first.

NBC leads off its coverage by announcing that Tom Brady is in attendance.

Please tune in anyway, those of you who grumble about his 23-year run of good fortune that led the Patriots and Buccaneers to seven championships. All luck. Well, most of it.

Men’s parallel bars lineup

Preamble

Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s how Simone Biles got on in her previous event:

At the world championships last year, a few days after her spectacular comeback began with a stellar all-around gold medal, Simone Biles’s first vault final ended with a fall. It was the first time she had performed her Yurchenko double pike in a major final and as she searched for the floor after the vault, her legs crumpled beneath her. Biles finished in second place behind Rebeca Andrade of Brazil.

As the Biles redemption tour continues and the gold medals keep on coming, she reasserted her status as the greatest vaulter of all time, keeping Andrade at bay with another supreme ­exhibition. Biles finished the vault final with an average score of 15.3points. Andrade averaged 14.966 and Biles’s teammate, Jade Carey, scored 14.466 for bronze.

This is the second time Biles has won the vault gold medal, following on from 2016. With three golds –in the team, the all-around and the vault competitions – she has now won 40 Olympic and world medals, further extending her record as the most decorated gymnast – man or woman.

You can read the full report below: