Simone Biles owned the vault.
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Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina, 41, also tried a “produnova”, the only vault with a rating of 7, and although the public showed its appreciation for her attempt, she did not pull it off perfectly and ended up in 7th place with a score of 14,833.
The “Final Five” had won every gold medal available in Rio behind superstar Simone Biles. With her win, she becomes only the third USA woman gymnast to win three gold medals; her teammates Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman are the other two.
While the day might belong to Whitlock, the games belong to Biles.
Biles, competing in the vault-apparatus final, collected her third gold, soaring off the vault horse and landing in the history book with a score of 15.066, which was.700 better than silver medalist Maria Paseka of Russian Federation – a staggering gap by gymnastics standards.
Going last among the eight female finalists, Biles drilled her Amanar – a round off onto the block followed by 2 ½ twists – and put up a 15.9 to take the lead. But, just to give us a heart attack, she was slated to go last in the event. She practically could have sat down on her next vault, the Cheng, but scored a 16.033.
The medal collection for the USA gymnastics team continued to accumulate Sunday.
Although she comfortably won the event, two of her competitors were forced to try an incredibly risky move known as the “the Produnova” in order to impress the judges. Biles is in the balance beam final on Monday and the floor exercise final on Tuesday, events in which she happens to be the reigning world champion.
The teen’s win is the latest in string of victories that has made her this Olympics’ most unstoppable athlete. Mikulak’s missteps were cheered by Brazilian fans, who were eager for countrymen Diego Hypolito and Arthur Mariano to maintain their silver and bronze positions, which they did. Douglas finished seventh, the second time she failed to medal in the uneven bars final at the Olympics. American Haley Anderson won silver in the event four years ago in London. Phelps had already passed the previous most-awarded Olympian record holder – Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina, who won 18 medals, nine of which were gold, from 1956-1964 – in 2012. She became the first Swiss gymnast to win a medal of any color at the Olympic Games.
She continued her breathtaking run in Rio by winning the individual vault title to go along with her all-around and team gold medals.
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United States’ Simone Biles performs on the vault during the artistic gymnastics women’s apparatus final at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2016.
