Biles soared so high off the floor during her explosive tumbling passes – which included her trademark double layout with half twist at the end – that her score of 15.933 allowed her to blow away the opposition.
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Marine Boyer of France was fourth and Flavia Saraiva of Brazil went last, and had a bobble that dropped her down to fifth after a long wait for the score.
A vault gold medal at a major championships had been the one hole in Biles’ otherwise unmatched resume.
Simone Biles doesn’t need much encouragement to either take a selfie in the athletes’ village, or to post it on her social media accounts.
In the vault competition, Biles was utter perfection as she nailed two of the hardest vaults in the competition, scoring 16.050, the highest of any gymnast during the meet. Biles is a three-time world champion and four-time United States all-around champion and has performed exceptionally well in Rio thus far.
After her vault triumph, Biles remains on track to win five golds in Rio-beam and floor remain-having already prevailed in the women’s team event and individual all-around.
Raisman added to ESPN that she knows Biles deserves her newly cemented legacy as possibly the greatest of all time, and spoke to how they supported each other throughout the competition.
Great Britain have won 11 medals including one three so far, but expect that to change rapidly as the track cycling gets under way in the Rio Olympic Velodrome. He earned bronze on still rings earlier Monday afternoon. King failed to qualify for the 200m breastroke final.
British riders have dominated the velodrome in 2008 and 2012 and three-time Olympic gold medallist Jason Kenny will be looking to guide his teammates to glory in the men’s team sprint.
“She wasn’t actually happy with her first vault because she can do it better than that”, Boorman said.
“No one goes in thinking they can beat Simone”, teammate Aly Raisman said after winning the all around silver.
Raisman’s performance was a bit of revenge from four years ago, when she tied for third but lost the bronze to Mustafina on a tiebreaker. She blew kisses to the crowd during a video tribute as she made her way off the floor.
Dipa Karmakar of India just missed out on bronze in vault, remarkable considering she’s the first Indian woman to compete in the Olympics.
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NADDOURS REDEMPTION: Alex Naddour became the first American since 1984 to earn a medal on pommel horse when he came in a close third behind Smith on pommel horse.
