Kyla Ross was a member of the Fierce Five who won team gold in London. There could be other words to use, but they’d all mean the same thing.
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Her win felt drama-free or boring only if you don’t like to watch a virtuoso performer stretching ideas of what’s possible, or see a great creation story come to fruition. She’s expected to obliterate her competition in three of next week’s apparatus finals.
Bronze medalist Aliya Mustafina of Russian Federation wasn’t exactly brimming with confidence about her chances, either. Everyone, everyone knew. I mean she’s that dominant and already just with the start value alone was almost a point ahead on everyone else on the floor.
Her remark about her patron saint was part of a list in an August 9 article about Biles posted by the magazine online with the headline, “25 Things You Don’t Know About Me”. “I knew going into tonight I was going to get the silver medal because I was going to hit four events”. As NBC Sports noted, it’s not just the biggest margin of victory ever in women’s gymnastics, it’s greater than the margins of victory from 1980 to 2012 combined. She blew kisses to the crowd after her floor exercise, overcome by a comeback that at times seemed in doubt. Only one other swimmer was within 10 meters at the end. A teammate assumed she would come back for the next quadrennium and asked why she wouldn’t. Simone Manuel, that’s her name. By age 14, she had made her mark as an elite junior gymnast, finishing third in the all-around American Classic.
One last test awaited in Rio, a contest not so much between Biles and the rest of the field but between herself and the outsized expectations her dominance has created.
The “Final Five” gymnasts have dedicated themselves to their sport, and are incredibly fit and toned as a result. The fact Biles has been firmly on top of the sport for four years is already awesome, but there’s even more in the tank.
Shes got all kinds of celebrity fans Hillary Clinton, Zac Efron, Taylor Swift tons of A-listers have been showing their support for her phenomenal talents.
“She is right on the top”, Karolyi, who along with her husband Bela steered Romanian Nadia Comaneci to the first ideal 10 at the 1976 Olympics, told reporters.
Instead, she put on a show befitting a champion for the ages. “I think it’s all about having moderation”, Raisman said. They reported that “in Rio it was the hype which failed to keep up with Simone Biles”.
No one is better than Biles. With her teammates cheering her on and everything on the line, she claimed the top spot on the Olympic podium.
United States’ Simone Biles performs on the balance beam during the artistic gymnastics women’s individual all-around final at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016.
Biles, standing at 4 feet 5 inches tall, became the first woman in 20 years to win back-to-back world and Olympic all-around titles. Raisman’s all-around score was 1.433 points ahead of Mustafina’s.
Even Raisman acknowledged she was fighting for second place – or first in the “non-Simone division”, as her fellow Americans have taken to describing it. I told her before today, I want you to win and I want second. “For me, the most special was my first, from Nadia, and the last, from Simone”.
The competition is not over for these two athletes.
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American Kayla Harrison defended her Olympic judo title in the women’s 78-kilogram division. Biles will compete vault on Sunday, beam on Monday and will try to dethrone Raisman on floor Tuesday. But she would prefer that people focus on the gold medal rather than her race.
