And although her team-mates Alexandra Raisman and Gabby Douglas had won team gold together at London 2012, Biles is the stand out name on the U.S. team.
Advertisement
The Americans are heavily favored to repeat as team gold medalists after leading the qualifiers by a staggering margin of almost nine points over second-place China.
Come Tuesday night, the USA women will win their second consecutive Olympic title.
In honour of the occasion, we take a look at some of the most famous routines ever to grace the global gymnasium stage. They are scored in two categories, execution and difficulty, which are then added together but anything in the mid 15’s or higher would be considered medal-worthy. (FYI, the beam is 4 inches wide-just saying.) Douglas did make the team after all, and we saw her compete alongside her teammates in last night’s qualifying rounds. The network also said, “We communicate constantly with our on-air commentators regarding their performance”. At the end of their subdivision, they had earned the highest team qualifying score, 185.238, by far. She cemented herself as one to beat in this portion with a score of 16.050.
With one skill remaining, the USA has a score of 138.898, for an average of 15.433 per discipline. Despite finishing so far ahead of China, silver medalist at last year’s world championships, and London runner-up Russian Federation that both countries would need binoculars to get the Americans in their sights, there is room for improvement. The U.S. hasn’t lost a major worldwide competition since 2010 and there appears to be no end in sight to their run even though Karolyi and her husband Bela are selling the training facility on their Texas ranch to USA Gymnastics later this month. Laurie Hernandez and Raisman turned in solid routines before Biles capped the competition with a 15.800, the best score of the competition. Biles is also blinging more than any female gymnast in World Championships history.
Douglas’ impressive performance silenced critics who questioned her spot on the team after a lackluster Olympic trials, where she fell off the balance beam both nights and placed seventh in the all-around.
Just call them the Final Five.
Rules limit each country to two gymnasts per event in the all-around and event finals, meaning even though Douglas was third overall, she’ll miss out on a chance to defend the crown she won in London.
The most intense drama of the night-and the one that most entranced NBC’s talking heads-was the race between Douglas and Raisman.
Advertisement
Biles follows with her routine – and her landing is so sound and straight that it looks like she’s just returned to her roots on the ground. She’s the favorite to win all of them, including team gold on Tuesday. Ron and Nellie are Simone’s grandparents, but they adopted Simone and her sister in 2001 (the girls’ parents were fighting drug and alcohol issues). Trautwig’s statement was a good first step, she said.
