Forty-one-year-old Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan attempted the world’s most hard vault move in order to best Biles, but fell, according to the New York Times. With two gold medals already to name, Biles quest to make gymnastics history continues with the Vault Finals – which promises to deliver unforgettable routines and an incredible round of competition.
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Douglas was solid in all four events, but really sparkled on the uneven bars.
BRITAIN’S BREAKTHROUGH: During the first 116 years of the Olympics, Great Britain won exactly zero gold medals in gymnastics of any variety.
Simone Biles had a lot riding on her entering Thursday’s individual all-around competition. But the apparatus finals, where it’s just one score and there’s no “next event” to recover on, weren’t quite as certain.
As the realization hit home that she finally owned the biggest individual prize in the sport, the crowd saluted a gymnast who had just become the first woman in 20 years to win the Olympic all-around title as the reigning world champion.
Biles scored an average of 15.966 on her two vaults, easily outdistancing Russia’s Maria Paseka (15.253) and Switzerland’s Giulia Steingruber (15.216), who won silver and bronze, respectively.
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.
“I’m not disappointed at all”, she said in an interview after coming in third overall in the qualifying. She led her teammates to the team gold to kick off her Olympics, then calmly did her thing on the balance beam to take a commanding lead before capping off the night with a strong effort on the floor event.
How to Shut Out the Haters: While Gabby showed up and did her job, she was facing the short end of the media stick from day one.
The chatter that will only become louder in these Olympics is whether Biles wants to compete in Tokyo, too. But that doesn’t mean that some gymnasts didn’t try to win vault from Biles. You know, which she was so indifferent to she only scored a phenomenal, superhuman 15.766. It was a stark improvement from the Olympic trials where Douglas fell off the beam not once, but twice, leaving Karolyi to defend the decision to put her on the team.
The 19-year-old was in the middle of her routine when she landed awkwardly while completing a front somersault.
Sunday’s program opened with men’s floor exercise, with two Americans among the eight-man field, having qualified first and second. The risky vault consists of two front flips off the vaulting table and is extremely hard to land.
The first to go for it was Oksana Chusovitina, the 41-year-old gymnast from Uzbekistan competing in her seventh Olympic Games. “You can see her expression when she watched the playback”. All she had to do was stand up her vaults.
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Obviously, she thought she had in order to beat Biles. That makes *three* gold medals for Biles now in Rio, and her first vault win on the world stage.
