Dipa Karmakar is the first Indian woman to compete in Olympic gymnastics and the first Indian gymnast to qualify for an individual event final.
Advertisement
In the gymnastics arena, Simone Biles topped teammate Aly Raisman to claim the sport’s most prestigious title, the individual all-around, giving her a second gold following the US team victory on Tuesday night.
Congratulations are in order: To Fiji, who just won its first-ever Olympic medal, a gold, in rugby.
Biles’ triumph is the first in the Olympics by an American woman on vault, and her first vault title in a major global competition.
Where, when and how can you catch the 2016 Rio Olympics women’s gymnastics vault finals?
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Simone Biles’ golden run in Rio is picking up steam.
Biles outclassed the competition once again in the vault final, winning her third gold of the Rio Games with a score of 15.966.
Simon Biles is the sky-high favorite to clinch one of the blue ribbon events of the Games: the women’s all-round title. Second place went to Maria Paseka of Russian Federation at 15.253.
Biles’ new vault is called the Amanar, and it starts with a roundoff back handspring onto the springboard, followed by two and a half twists in the air with her body straight.
Biles will go down in history and her Olympic moment will be remembered for years to come. She is the fourth consecutive American woman to take the premier event in gymnastics.
Biles has won two gold medals at the Olympic competition.
The eyes of the world will be on gymnast Simone Biles on day 6 as the American chases a second gold medal in the women’s all-round, while golf returns to the Games after a 112-year absence.
On Monday, she is scheduled to compete in the balance beam event and on Tuesday she will compete in the floor exercises. Her win on Thursday was the most dominant in global gymnastics in the open scoring era (since 2006). Oksana Chusovitina’s seventh trip to the Olympics ended with a seventh-place finish for the 41-year-old from Uzbekistan.
But efforts to draw comparisons between her and other world stars were swiftly played down by the teenager despite her celebrity status.
Mikulak’s 14.333 score was more than a point lower than Great Britain Max Whitlock’s winning mark (15.633) and his own qualifying score (15.8). The 23-year-old edged Brazils Diego Hypolito in the mens floor exercise then beat teammate and friendly rival Louis Smith on pommel horse a short time later.
Mikulak said he “got pretty rattled” by the noise.
Advertisement
The 19-year-old American soared to the all-around title on Thursday, putting the gap between herself and the rest of the world on full display under the Olympic spotlight.
