One day after a Brazilian pulled off an upset to win the men’s pole vault Monday night, the women’s soccer team lost to Sweden in a shootout. But floor exercise is the closest thing to a blank page on which athletes can express their personalities.
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US team coordinator Marta Karolyi could not have ended her gymnastics coaching career on a better note as two of her students, Simone Biles and Aly Raisman, claimed gold and silver in Tuesday’s floor exercise.
She helped the Final Five to team gold again in Rio, making Raisman and team-mate Gabby Douglas the only Americans with back-to-back team golds.
A sultry routine flew high in air to perform her moves on samba music, Brazilian crowd on their feet. Her “start value”, reflecting the rigor, was 6.8.
Biles and Efron have had a series of friendly exchanges on Twitter since her “Today” appearance. She was in full command of her acrobatics, soaring almost as high as the gravity-defying Biles, and sticking every landing.
Aly Raisman of United States earned 15.500, while Briton Amy Tinkler burst into tears after weak performance.
But she does kinda make us feel bad about ourselves when we’re sat at home on the sofa with a huge plate of spaghetti balanced on our tummies watching her leap about…
Hernandez turned professional shortly before arriving in Rio and could fill the void at the top of the USA program if Biles decides to take a break after the games.
It was reported that Simone Biles landed awkwardly while completing a front somersault in the middle of her routine.
Earlier Tuesday, Miami’s Danell Leyva, the only US male gymnast to qualify for the parallel bars final, earned silver on the apparatus. Her score of 14.733 ended up well behind the 15.466 put up Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands and the 15.333 “Final Five” teammate Laurie Hernandez posted while grabbing silver.
With U.S. teammates shouting approval from their seats at the opposite end of the arena, Leyva was a study in body control and stuck his landing with authority.
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Also Monday, Ri Se Gwang of North Korea took gold in men’s vault, followed by Denis Abliazin of Russian Federation and Kenzo Shirai of Japan.
