Marta Karolyi coached her final US women’s national gymnastics team to a gold medal here Tuesday at the Rio Olympic Arena.
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The gold – Team USA’s second consecutive – makes Raisman and Douglas the only US women to win three Olympic gold medals.
Biles and two other USA gymnasts, Aly Raisman and London all-around gold medal victor Gabby Douglas, had finished with the three highest all around scores in the qualifying event on Sunday.
It marked the first time the US women have won back-to-back gold medals in team competition. You probably remember the Magnificent Seven, who competed in the last Olympics to allow a team size of seven athletes in 1996.
Since USA Gymnastics began utilizing the Karolyi system of identifying and developing gymnasts, the American women have won 89 world and Olympic medals. And Biles, the reigning three-time world champion, will try to give the Americans a second consecutive all-around gold.
After Biles finished her power-packed floor exercise, the scoreboard showed that the United States had amassed 184.897 points, an eight-point gap over silver medal-winning team Russian Federation, and the largest margin in the history of the event. China’s Shang Chunsong said her team “aimed for the silver medal”, a position the Chinese seemed to have in hand until stumbling on the final rotation. “It is just phenomenal”, said 2012 all-around champion Douglas, who will not be able to defend her title Thursday.
Despite the gold medals tonight, the work isn’t over for Team USA and there’s plenty of hardware to be won. That’s not one of Skinner’s best events, which is exactly why national team coordinator Martha Karolyi and her committee picked Douglas and Madison Kocian.
Cue the Final Five!
Meanwhile, all the United States had to do was avoid disaster on the floor to win the gold medal. But unfortunately they slipped down to fifth at the halfway point in the competition. Ultimately, Russia earned silver with a combined score of 176.688, and China earned bronze with 176.003. And Biles’ Latin-inspired routine obviously incorporated her signature move, The Biles-it was the best floor score of the competition. This is also the final team to be coordinated by Martha Karolyi before her upcoming retirement. “The team format will be four gymnasts, four compete on each apparatus, and three scores count”. The U.S. scored just shy of 185 points.
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Simone Biles competes in the floor exercise during the women’s team gymnastics final Tuesday. And on the floor exercise with Simon Biles – Aly Raisman.
