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Knoxville gymnasts inspired by US Women’s Gymnastics success in Rio

Needing only to land her second vault to win, Biles was near ideal.

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Responding to the comparison, the superstar said: ‘I’m not the next Usain Bolt or Michael Phelps. Forget the hype. Simone Biles is immune to all of it. Max Whitlock with Great Britain won the bronze.

The 19-year-old, who has already won women’s team all-round as part of Team USA, scored 62.198 points to win her second gold medal while fellow team member Alexandra Raisman won the silver and Russia’s Aliya Mustafina took home the bronze. There was a three-way tie for vault difficulty, but no one flies as high as Biles does on her Amanar vault. Maria Paseka of Russian Federation won the silver with a combined score of 15.253 and Giulia Steingruber of Sweden took home bronze with a combined score of 15.216.

Raisman said she had to stare down the skeptics when she came back too the national team in 2014 after a series of injuries.

Shortly before the Olympics started, a video of North Korea’s Hong Un-Jong surfaced and immediately started chatter that Hong could both make gymnastics history and outscore Biles.

Biles finished 2.1 points ahead of Raisman, wrapping up the title with a dynamic floor routine which included her signature tumbling “Biles” move named after her.

Uchimura won the men’s individual all around gold medal, adding to an awesome record that includes three world championship titles and gold at the 2012 London Olympics.

Her 14 world championship medals are the most ever won by an American woman. Team USA holds the chance to win 10 gold medals in every finals event, including vault, beams, bar, and floor exercises. She’s got two more medals to win, after all.

She also said she was disappointed in her first vault.

“Simone Biles continued her dominant display of excellence at the 2016 Rio Olympics with a gold medal in the vault finals”.

American Sam Mikulak finished eighth, his routine disrupted by an explosion from the rowdy crowd inside Rio Olympic Arena, which burst into applause when Mikulak – going last – made a mistake to assure the Brazilians of two medals.

Mikulak said he “got pretty rattled” by the noise.

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Biles became the fourth straight American woman to capture the all-around and fifth overall.

Simone Biles won the women's vault final in the Rio Olympic Arena setting a new mark for wins in a single Olympics by an American woman. Ryan Pierse  Getty Images