The 2016 Olympics women’s gymnastics team final results are in, and the USA team takes gold!
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She bounced into splits and pulled herself up, James Brown style. I tried to redirect my niece’s energy.
We’ll update this post below, with news and analysis from the event – so if you want to avoid spoilers, look away now. Team U.S.A. easily outscored the other competitors in every event (with a final score of 184.897), so much so that the real suspense came from the struggle for second place. But my little niece merely shrugged and said, “I’ve seen them”. “It felt like one more routine and we kept calm”. She has said she routinely lights a candle to St. Sebastian, the patron saint of athletes and of Rio, before each meet.
In the end it was not even close. There are specialists in gymnastics, who focus all their talent on excelling in one discipline or technique. I remember being in awe of her. They were part of the Fierce Five that won gold in London. But she was the exception to my mind rather than the rule. They’re young because the adult human body isn’t supposed to do the things they do. I’ve cried many tears over the last two years, wondering what it takes for black women like me to be valued and loved by anyone.
Marta Karolyi, who helped turn her native Romania into a gymnastics powerhouse in the 70s with her husband Bela long before becoming head coach of the American team, said the quality of the United States program, and its dynasty, stacks up against those dominant Eastern European programs of the past.
The US women become the first team to win back-to-back Olympic golds since Romania in 2000 and 2004.
From left, Simone Biles, Gabrielle Douglas, Laurie Hernandez (393) and Madison Kocian, center, celebrate winning the gold in the women’s team final.
Not since the golden era of the Soviet Union, which won eight successive women’s team golds between 1952 and 1980, has one team been so superior. Russian Federation moved up to second place in the final rotation, with a score of 176.688 to the USA team’s 184.897.
This is what my niece is used to seeing.
The United States women’s gymnastics team put a hefty beat down on the rest of the world, flipping and twisting and turning their way to history with a dominant gold medal in the team event on Tuesday night.
And taking to the floor last Biles turned on an acrobatic display of tumbling to Brazilian Samba music which proved a hit with the home crowd to seal a victory which was never in doubt.
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“We set the standard and we’re not going down”.
