Just being back on the floor after a case of the "twisties" - where a gymnast loses the ability to gauge where they are in the air when performing - saw her withdraw from four finals before they started and another after just one vault was enough for the four-time Olympic champion.

Given everything that had happened in the week since she pulled out of the team final, the 24-year-old American great could scarcely have hoped for better.

In typical style, Biles produced a nerveless, fearless display to claim bronze behind a Chinese one-two, led by Guan Chenchen and completed by silver medallist Tang Xijing.

Biles admitted she had changed her routine because of "everything that had gone on", but it was still enough for a place on the podium and a seventh Olympic medal.

Such was the expectation on Biles five years ago at the 2016 Olympics, the bronze she earned on the beam in Rio de Janeiro was considered a blemish on what was anticipated to be a perfect record.

This bronze medal, won after she withdrew from every other final she had qualified for to focus on her mental health, was the polar opposite.

A smiling Biles' entrance to the venue here was greeted with a rapturous response as a small number of athletes, team officials and members of the "Olympic Family" generated a noise befitting of the occasion.

While Biles was not highly tipped for a medal after finishing seventh in qualifying, she was equally not as much of an outsider as some might have thought.

After all, this is an apparatus which has yielded three of the American’s 19 world titles.

There were a few wobbles and jitters during her routine, but it was also packed full of the flair, poise and elegance that have helped elevate her to greatest-of-all-time status.

Biles grinned after completing her performance and as the rest of the gymnasts left to perform struggled, the chances of a medal grew even greater.

Her podium finish was confirmed when Brazilian Flavia Saraiva failed to surpass her score of 14.000 points, 0.66 down on her qualification total.

Another smile from Biles came when the result flashed up on the screen, before she was congratulated by International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach and International Gymnastics Federation counterpart Morinari Watanabe.

Cheers reverberated around the arena again when her name was announced at the medal ceremony, the culmination of a tumultuous and torrid week for one of the world's most revered athletes.

"It’s been a very long week, a very long five years," Biles said.

"I didn’t expect to medal today, I just wanted to go out and do it for me, and that’s what I did.

"Just to have the opportunity to compete at the Olympic Games meant the world, because training for five years and then coming here, then kind of being triggered and not being able to do anything, it wasn't fun.

"To go out there and compete one more time and have everyone's support meant the world.

"It definitely feels more special, this bronze, than the balance beam bronze at Rio. I will cherish it for a long time."