The U.S. artistic gymnastics team will try and defend their 2012 gold medal in the women’s team all-around final, led by 19-year-old sensation Simone Biles.
Advertisement
Gabby Douglas, meanwhile, will compete only on uneven bars.
Rio will be the last Olympics to see five-member gymnastics teams.
With two consecutive Olympic golds and world championships titles in 2011, 2014 and 2015, the US women have made a seemingly unbreakable habit of winning. “Throughout the day, it didn’t feel like the Olympics”.
Becky Downie: “This is one of the strongest teams we have ever put out, we could not have done more and nobody should be disappointed”. They last won a medal for their side in 1996. The whole world is thinking that she’s going to come out on top, and she’s got quite a lot of pressure on her.
Ledecky strode atop the medal podium again with a bright smile after taking gold for winning the 200-meter freestyle. Raisman is the reigning Olympic champion on floor while Biles is the reigning world champion, and they showed why.
At the halfway point the U.S. women were nearly home and dry having already pulled over four points ahead of China and Russian Federation.
Laurie Hernandez might or might not have winked at the judges before her powerful floor routine.
Russian Federation finished second, while China took the bronze medal.
“I would say that it seems really loud (on the court), so I can’t imagine if it was full and everyone was cheering that loud”, said American tennis player Madison Keys.
Claudia Fragapane: “I am happy to have gone out there and enjoyed the competition. It’s awesome to be out there and to experience this with these wonderful girls”, said Douglas, who competed on just one apparatus – the uneven bars.
Russia, spearheaded by Aliya Mustafina, took silver as in 2012.
Team Canada won the bronze medal match against Great Britain after blowing out the Britain squad by a score of 33-10.
Ledecky has now won three total medals in these Olympics, two gold and a silver in the 4×100 freestyle relay.
The other teams in the final gave their best efforts to make a run at the long-reigning queens of the sport, but almost every team suffered a fall over the course of four events.
Advertisement
The other teams that qualified for the team final are Russian Federation (174.620), Great Britain (174.064), Brazil (174.054), Germany (173.263), Japan (172.564) and the Netherlands (171.929).
