Simone Biles of U.S. competes on the beam during the artistic gymnastics women’s individual all-around final at the Rio Olympic Arena, Rio de Janeiro August 11, 2016.
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Biles has three consecutive world all-around titles, a first in gymnastics, and her 10 world championship gold medals rank as the most all time for any woman.
By the time it was really over, Biles, 19, clinched gold almost two points ahead of her teammate Aly Raisman, and cementing her status as the world’s greatest gymnast and arguably the best of all time.
“The 1.45-meter (4’9”) devout Christian Texan who regularly attends church, is competing in her first Olympics and had already helped the United States women to a second straight team gold.
There was a three-way tie for vault difficulty, but no one flies as high as Biles does on her Amanar vault.
But any thoughts of the Russian recording a shock victory were quickly extinguished as Biles produced a fine beam effort to take her clear of her opponents.
The 19-year-old – world champion in all-around, balance beam and floor – ensured that the women’s event would not have the nail-biting finale which saw Kohei Uchimura win by 0.099 of a point 24 hours previously.
She’s already got one gold medal, having led the Final Five to the team title. She repeatedly has said it’s for others to judge.
Two days after dominating the women’s team final, American gymnasts again asserted their dominance in Thursday’s women’s individual all-around final.
But Thursday’s silver, she said, “shows you should never let anyone tell you that you can’t do anything, and you should never give up just because you fail in something”.
Gold medals were the expectation for Biles at the Rio Olympics.
But what the 1.45 metre Biles lacks in height, she more than makes up in stature. Nailing all four of her tumbling passes, she received a 15.433 to Mustafina’s 13.933, the point and a half more than enough to clinch silver and avoid another tiebreaking scenario.
“When I first came back, all the media and everyone looked at me like I was insane that I was really going to come back”, said Raisman.
Tonight Raisman got her chance on floor exercise, where she was the Olympic champion in 2012.
Biles won the floor routine but Raisman, who was the Olympic champion in London in 2012 and is always superlative in the event, performed flawlessly, thus assuring herself the silver, while Mustafina slid to third.
In an instant, the past four years spent wondering “if only I hadn’t taken a step here or wobbled there” disappeared. This skill, done on the floor exercise, requires a high level of “air awareness” due to the blind landing-in other words, as Biles flips and twist through the air she has to know exactly where the ground is because she won’t see it until she lands.
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Fleming said she was happy to watch such an important moment in the athlete’s career as she won the medal for America.
