Naddour finished third behind a pair of British gymnasts in Max Whitlock and Louis Smith, who won gold and silver, respectively. That, combined with the remarkable performance of Biles, will likely and hopefully help balance the numbers. So, surprisingly, is Great Britain’s.
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Sixteen-year-old Deavon Stalling of the Mighty Krocs Swim Club says Simone Manuel’s gold medal win was not just inspiring but groundbreaking.
Go Simone go! Olympic superstar Simone Biles, 19, is looking to leave Rio with her third gold medal when she competes in the individual vault competition and she could easily own this event.
India’s Dipa Karmakar had seemed poised to win her country’s first medal of the Rio Games, after improving on an initial 14.866 with a 15.266, for an average of 15.066.
While the day may belong to Whitlock, the games belong to Biles. Her two-vault average of 15.966 was more than.7 better than silver medalist Maria Paseka of Russian Federation and bronze medalist Giulia Steingruber of Switzerland.
Going last in the field of eight, she scored 15.966 for her two attempts. Needing only to land her second vault to win, Biles was near ideal.
Biles is often called the best gymnast in the world, automatically raising the bar for her fellow athletes. Manuel’s gold was the first ever won by an African American woman in an individual Olympic swimming event.
It’s fitting, of course, that Phelps’ final race resulted in gold, the 23rd gold medal of his career and 28th Olympic medal overall. As if that wasn’t enough of an accomplishment, he broke Aaron Peirsol’s seven-year old world record while swimming the first leg of the men’s 100m medley final on August 14. Chusovitina said afterward she’s already planning to train all the way to the 2020 games in Tokyo. Floor exercise is Tuesday. Whitlock’s score of 15.633 was just enough to edge Hypolito, who finished with a 15.533. Silver and bronze went to Brazilian gymnasts in Diego Hypolito and Arthur Mariano.
Australia took the silver medal in a time of 3:55.00 and Denmark rounded out the podium with bronze medals, 0.01 seconds behind Australia.
“We would have to watch her if it was bath time because she would always try to sneak off to get in the bathtub with him because she loved the water”, her mother said.
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Detti rallied over the final laps to pass American Jordan Wilimovksy, who settled for fourth.
