Simone Biles led the way for a talented American women’s gymnastics squad that delivered on its massive potential Tuesday, winning gold in the team competition of the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
Advertisement
Chinese athletes swept to the top of the gold medal table at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a feat accompanied by a wave of national pride, the culmination of China’s “100 year dream” to host the world’s most prestigious sports event.
In Sunday’s qualifying, Biles, Raisman and Gabby Douglas ranked 1-2-3 in the all-around, which means Douglas, the reigning Olympic champ, won’t even get to defend her individual all-around title Thursday.
Douglas was the only American to do the all-around in the team final in London, but the USA pipeline has produced a team that is even deeper and more versatile than the Fierce Five.
Here’s how they did it.
The Americans started on vault and didn’t disappoint. Raisman and Biles tried the hard Amanar, in which the vaulter does 2 1/2 twists with a blind landing.
Simone Biles led the way, scoring a 15.8 on her floor routine, a 15.9 on her vault, and 15.3 on the beam.
After one rotation, the Americans were already out in front, by 0.7 points over Russian Federation, who performed on the bars.
Ledecky moves into the 200m freestyle semifinals in first place after racing to one minute, 55.01 seconds; that swim comes about 14 hours after she set the 400m freestyle world record en route to picking up her first individual gold of the Rio Olympics.
Aly Raisman’s floor exercise is full of bounding energy and ideal landings, netting her a 15.366. With a score of 15.233, she tops Raisman’s score (15.000).
How fitting that the Americans ended the competition on floor exercise, the stage Biles loves best.
No serious mishaps for the Americans on the sometimes perilous beam. After Biles, Raisman (60.607) finished second and Douglas (60.131) was third. Then Biles, who packs more explosive power in her 4-foot-8 frame than this sport has ever seen, brought down the house. But with a almost 5-point lead over China, it hardly mattered.
Hernandez gave her typical charismatic performance, starting with a wink for the crowd.
Michael Phelps has to clear out more space in his medal case.
Advertisement
Biles follows with her routine – and her landing is so sound and straight that it looks like she’s just returned to her roots on the ground. Russia is running a close second with 46.166 – a figure to keep in mind on the USA uneven bars rotation, which the Russian team just left. “If Wada [World Anti-Doping Agency] say tomorrow they are banning yoghurt or animal protein or stuff that other people use and they ban this and you stop, [what happens next?] This comes out of your body for six months and if doping control come after two months and it is still in your body, is this your fault?” They were close anyway, though, with no major gaffes and just a few minor mistakes.
