No moment of the path of Simone Biles towards her second Olympic gold medal in the women’s all-around has been easy.
On Thursday, August 1st in the Parisian evening, during the final of the women’s all-around of the Paris 2024 Olympic GamesThe gymnastics superstar unexpectedly found herself in third place after a shaky uneven bars routine in the first half of the competition.
The American fought hard to keep from stopping on the low bar after a high-to-low transition, bending her knees to avoid hitting the mat and adding an extra element of kipping. Her score was 13.733, or 0.700 less than in the qualifying round.
Biles was 0.267 behind the Brazilian Rebecca Andradeworld all-around champion in 2022, already 0.200 behind the Algerian Kaylia Nemour after two tests.
But instead of fading away, Biles — as she has so often — soared, scoring a 14.566 on the balance beam, giving her a slim .166 advantage heading into the final rotation of the floor exercise.
Biles dazzled again with a total of 59.131 in the all-around competition, beating Andrade (57.932). The Tokyo 2020 champion, Sunny Leetook bronze with 56.465.
Biles had earlier opened the competition in the first rotation with an impressive Yurchenko double pike vault.
The vault, named after Biles after she became the first woman to successfully perform it at last year’s World Championships in Antwerp, earned a score of 15.766.
Biles won her first Olympic gold at the 2016 Rio Games and with this title wrote a new chapter in the history of artistic gymnastics. No woman had ever won two non-consecutive Olympic all-around titles, while two women (Larisa is a Latina 1956-60 y Vera Čáslavská 1964-68) and four men (Alberto Braglia 1908-12; Victor Chukarin 1952-56; Kato Sawao 1968-72; y Uchimura Kohei 2012-2016) have two all-around Olympic gold medals.
Biles has not lost an all-around competition since a friendly competition in early 2013 in Germany, where she was defeated by 2012 Olympic team champion Kyla Ross.
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