Biles, who helped the “Final Five” to team gold and also dominated the all-around competition last week, averaged 15.966 on her two vaults on Sunday to become the first American woman to win the event at the Olympics.
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Until the point that Mustafina mounted the bars to start her routine, the U.S. were eyeing up a clean sweep of the women’s gymnastics golds, thanks to the irrepressible Biles.
United States’ Simone Biles performs on the floor during the artistic gymnastics women’s individual all-around final at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, Thursday, Aug. 11, 2016. Biles’ triumph is the first Olympic win for an American woman on vault – and her first title in the event at any major global competition.
Asked if she can tell her three gold medals apart, she flashed the megawatt smile that has graced magazine covers and newspaper front pages and said: “You can tell which is which because on the bottom they are engraved”.
She stays on pace to win an unprecedented five gold medals, with balance beam Monday the most questionable.
Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina, bidding to become the oldest ever gymnast to win an Olympic medal at the age of 41, finished seventh out of the eight finalists after over-rotating on her Produnova.
Simone Biles can add to her medal haul when the event finals begin. “We are both excited to be here and now we are both taking gold medals home”.
With three all-around world titles and four consecutive national titles under her belt, Biles is normally among the most reserved of athletes when it comes to discussing her accomplishments.
“It was really cool to see two flags rise up there”, Whitlock said. Mustafina’s score of 15.900 was just a touch better than Kocian’s score of 15.833.
Dipa Karmakar of India just missed out on bronze in vault, remarkable considering she’s the first Indian woman to compete in the Olympics.
In other individual competitions Sunday, Madison Kocian won the silver medal in the uneven bars, and Alex Naddour won the bronze for his pommel horse routine.
Sophie Scheder of Germany earned bronze.
Manuel and Oleksiak shared the top spot on the medal podium, with the USA anthem played first followed by the Canadian anthem.
At the time, Ervin was the first person of African-American heritage to win a Gold medal.
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Michael Phelps of reacts after the USA team won the men’s 4 x 100 IM relay, the last of Phelps’ performances at the Rio Olympics, and likely in his career. The gold went to Denmark’s Pernille Blume, the 22-year-old who finished in 24.07.
