The United States women’s gymnastics team, led by its Jewish-American captain Aly Raisman, won the Olympic gold medal in Rio.
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Biles, Gabby Douglas, Aly Raisman, Madison Kocian and Laurie Hernandez – claimed gold by a margin of over eight points on Russian Federation with China winning bronze in the Rio Olympic Arena.
In a sport where tenths of a point can mean the difference between a gold and no medal at all, their winning margin of 8.209 points was a blowout.
In fact there was only 4.601 separating silver medallists Russian Federation from last-placed finalist Brazil. By posting the highest scores on each event, Team USA kept themselves so far ahead of their global competitors – teams from Russia, China (which took bronze), Japan, Great Britain, Brazil, the Netherlands and Germany – there was no hope for anyone to catch up.
The nickname was in honor of longtime USA women’s gymnastics coach and coordinator Marta Karolyi who is retiring after the Olympics in Rio. Biles had the top score in the all-around qualifier with Raisman second. The American gymnast had one thing on her mind when the fire alarm in her building went off on August 10: her gold medal.
At the current age of 22-years-old, she’ll be 26 when the next edition of the Summer Games arrive.
The five girls – Simone Biles, Gabby Douglas, Laurie Hernandez, Madison Kocian and Aly Raisman – caught up with Us Weekly and other reporters after their historic win and opened up about how they got there.
“We were trying for silver”. The collective strength of the Americans – with Kocian securing the team’s highest mark of the day (15.933) with her high-flying bars routine – left Biles needing to overhaul a paltry target of just 7.591 with her final floor performance to secure the first Olympic gold of her career.
In a video posted to her Snapchat account, Biles captures how she and the rest of the Final Five reacted when the fire alarm went off.
“We set the standard and we’re not going down”.
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That resulted in the biggest crowd yet for these Olympics, though for the fifth straight night, Rio trailed London’s results four years ago. “It felt like one more routine and we kept calm”.
