Gabby Douglas, the 2012 Olympic all-around champion and member of the gold-medal-winning USA team at those Games, will be heading to Rio despite a rough performance at squad trials here. It is a chance for U.S. to defend the overall team gold medal it collected in 2012.
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Speaking of the Olympics, Caitlyn Jenner recently celebrated the 40-year anniversary of her gold medal win, covered in gold on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
Simone Biles was pretty much guaranteed to earn a spot in this year’s USA women’s gymnastics team. Even after finishing first in the all-around on both nights of competition, Biles struggled to explain the emotions of finding out her Olympic fate.
The New Jersey native is the first Latina gymnast to head to the Olympics on the USA team since 2004.
Aly Raisman competes on the balance beam during the women’s U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials in San Jose, Calif., Sunday, July 10, 2016. Madison was part of a historic four-way tie at the 2015 World Championships in the uneven bars final, making her co-world champion on the event. MyKayla Skinner, Ragan Smith and Ashton Locklear are the alternates.
Gabby Douglas is returning to the Olympics.
“We are very, very proud of her”, said parent Negest Kerekes.
Teammate and three-time world champion Simone Biles wasted no time with a witty response: “We’re too young to die”.
She began on the floor and fired up the capacity crowd with a saucy, high-flying routine that was worth the price of admission alone but not flawless stepping out of bounds on one of her tumbling runs. However, her routine on the uneven bars boasted one of the highest scores of the competition on night two. She won the world title in 2015, and is considered an “event specialist”. Three U.S. female gymnasts have earned five medals at a single Games – Mary Lou Retton, Shannon Miller and Nastia Liukin.
“Having these extra events is probably helping my case to make that Olympic team”, Kocian said in an interview on Friday per Yahoo! Douglas’ life has been filled with distractions since winning Olympic gold in London, the latest being this weekend when she unexpectedly changed which one of her coaches is with her on the floor at competitions.
Madison Kocian rounds out the team, in a hard-fought win that was well deserved. On the all-important uneven bars, she was 12th. Expect her to be used on beam, floor and vault in the team final. Though hardly surprising after she won the US junior championship a year ago, Hernandez’s past month of competition has been impressive as she has shown she belongs with the top gymnasts in the world.
“Just when we thought we were at the physical limit of the sport, then here comes Simone Biles”, Retton said per ESPN. And this determined, ultra-focused grandmother gymnast will be leading the Americans into another Olympics with all the kids, even if she wasn’t so sure as she waited for the official announcement.
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“I could only do what I could with the ankle”, she said. “It’s just something so special that I will never forget her announcing my name”.
