Star Marta has enchanted crowds, leading the team to a 5-1 rout of Sweden on Sunday.
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Its reward? Olympic gold for a second straight Games – and in runaway fashion. China’s Shang Chunsong said her team “aimed for the silver medal”, a position the Chinese seemed to have in hand until stumbling on the final rotation.
LEWIS: Well, is it any surprise if I tell you that they won gold, and they won gold convincingly. That’s a 35 percent drop compared to the 40.7 million USA viewers who watched the opening of the London Games four years ago – although NBC is pointing to more time-shifted viewing and streaming as factors in the decrease.
At the end of the competition, the team huddled up for a cheer, shouting, “We are the Final Five!”. “It’s hard to say because it’s two different teams”.
US gymnasts, left to right, Gabrielle Douglas, Aly Raisman, Simone Biles, Madison Kocian, and Lauren Hernandez pose for the camera at the end of the artistic gymnastics women’s team final at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016.
The American women have been the top gymnasts in the world for six years. It’s hard to measure against history, with scoring in gymnastics having shifted away from the 10-point system a decade ago and changing even since the 2008 Olympics, when the USA won silver.
A day after adding a record 19th gold medal to his collection, Michael Phelps swims in preliminaries of the men’s 200 meter butterfly at 1:44 p.m. How’s that for pressure? “We use that as confidence”. They are the best in the world, they know they are the best in the world, and everybody else knows they are the best in the world. This is the best team that we have ever seen.
After the first rotation, the USA team is in first place, with a combined 46.866 points. Next, Biles, Gabby Douglas, and newcomer Madison Kocian competed on the uneven bars. Suddenly, the US led by four points.
“It hasn’t been easy, but we have done everything we could have done to get where we are”, she said.
And barring a major disaster, the question heading into the team final Tuesday afternoon at the Rio Olympic Arena won’t be whether these five American women will win gold. “If you make a mistake, then you move on to the next skill”.
The popular American team, who received a reception almost as loud as any of the home team’s competitors, were heavily favored to dominate these games, going to Rio as one of the biggest stories alongside legendary Olympians Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt competing in their last games.
With Simone Biles’s lights-out floor exercise providing the final flourish to a competition in which they hit 12 of 12 routines, that time came Tuesday afternoon – shortly after the scoreboard confirmed they had won the Olympic team gold by a whopping eight-point margin over fierce rival China and just before they stepped up to the medal stand to receive the gold.
In the final rotation, the floor routine was a celebration of sorts, when the script had – for the most part – already written. That didn’t mean it couldn’t be the flawless ending for what had been an nearly ideal two days of competition, the crowd clapping in unison along with Hernandez’s music, then chanting “U-S-A!” after Raisman hit – gloriously – sticking her final tumbling pass.
And, before she performed on the balance beam, she went through one of her small routines that proves how money she really is.
“Laurie started out fantastic and Aly went out there”, Biles said.
After Hernandez and Raisman competed, Biles needed a mere 7.591 to ensure the Russians wouldn’t win gold.
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HollywoodLifers, what do you think of the team’s new nickname?
After watching the Chinese athletes perform their routines on the uneven bars, the US squad is finally called. Interestingly, Shivani also placed second in the heats ahead of Kaya Adwoa Forson of Ghana, whom she beat in avoiding the wooden spoon in the overall list.
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A team that has brought tears out of Karolyi? She’s molded the US program into a ponytailed juggernaut.
