Gabby Douglas, the 2012 Olympic women’s all-around gold-medal victor, finished seventh in the uneven bars competition at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday.
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Hours before Ballas celebrated her success, Raisman took to Instagram to share an adorable quote from teammate Simone Biles. She finished in a four-way tie for first place at the World Championships a year ago in this event.
“She has medaled at the world championships on vault, but she hasn’t been able to win because her difficulty wasn’t high enough”, coach Aimee Boorman said.
The vault final included a wide field of gymnasts in Rio Olympic Arena: it’s rare, for instance, for an Olympic gymnast to face a competitor who’s more than twice her age. She also becomes the first American woman to win gold on the vault. Teammate Louis Smith picked up his second consecutive Olympic silver medal in the event with a 15.833.
On Sunday she averaged 15.966 points across her two vault attempts to earn gold. And worked. And worked some more, doing drills for a new vault, the Cheng, that she’d been playing around with for more than a year but felt wasn’t ready for competition. The former, made famous by McKayla Maroney, is what the 19-year-old performed in the team and individual all-around competitions last week. The risky vault consists of two front flips off the vaulting table and is extremely hard to land. She then does a two-and-a-half twisting backwards salto (a salto is another way of saying a flip).
Mikulak’s qualifying floor score was 15.800; in the team final, Shirai looked like his world champion self and scored 16.133 on floor.
The gold medalist’s mother, Natalie Hawkins has been quick to jump to her daughter’s defense too, insisting she’s heartbroken over the mean nickname “Crabby Gabby” and at being branded unpatriotic and miserable. How are the gymnasts scored?
For Biles it seemed business as usual, with little over-the-top celebration as she captured the third of what could be a record haul of five golds. She’s got two more medals to win, after all. Simone’s second vault is not only extremely hard, but it requires great form. Her toes are pointed, her legs together and straightened. “It’s something I wanted so badly, so I just tried to keep a good mind going into vault”, she said. Watch a video of both Biles’ and Cheng Fei performing the Cheng below.
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The Americans did receive a jolt of good news for the US men’s program, which finished fifth in the team competition and failed to pick up a medal in the all-around last week, when Alex Naddour picked up bronze on pommels behind Whitlock and rival and teammate Louis Smith.
