Simone Biles craned her neck to watch the score flash across the big screen. When it flashed — 15.300 — her smile was the only thing brighter than Bercy Arena’s lights.
Biles claimed her seventh Olympic gold medal and 10th Olympic medal overall by adding a vault title on Saturday.
The 27-year-old put up an untouchable 15.700 score with a Yurchenko double pike on her first vault — her eponymous skill that no other woman has attempted in competition before — then backed it up with a 14.900 on her second vault. With Biles’ considerable difficulty, no woman in the competition had a chance to match her score.
The top challenger, the reigning Olympic vault champion Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, did not attempt a new skill that could have helped her challenge Biles but executed two nearly flawless vaults to take silver with 14.966 points.
Jade Carey , who was expected to challenge for a vault medal in Tokyo but balked one of her attempts in the final, earned the bronze medal with 14.466 points.
It’s the first time the United States has had two female gymnasts on the Olympic vault podium and the second time out of five event finals following Thursday’s all-around final that featured Biles and Suni Lee taking home gold and bronze, respectively.
After Thursday's all-around final during which Andrade led after two rotations before Biles came back for a nearly two-point victory, the U.S. superstar joked she could no longer handle Andrade’s heat.
“I don't want to compete with Rebeca no more,” Biles said. “I'm tired. She's way too close.”
Andrade, Brazil’s most decorated female gymnast, is respected in the gymnastics world for her combination of technique and power. The 25-year-old edged out Biles for the vault gold medal at 2023 world championships when Biles rolled backwards on her signature Yurchenko double pike.
Andrade’s Cheng vault — a roundoff onto the board with a half-turn onto the table and a one-and-a-half twist in the air — regularly scores better than Biles’ performance of the same skill as Andrade tends to pop more vertically off the table while Biles covers more horizontal ground.
Biles’ double-flipping vault carries a competition-high 6.4 difficulty score — and that is the difference-maker for the U.S. star.
In an attempt to challenge Biles, Andrade submitted an original skill, a triple-twisting Yurchenko, which is worth six difficulty points. The upgraded element would have cut the margin of difficulty between her and Biles down to four-tenths instead of a whole point.
Andrade instead kept status quo with her two-and-a-half twisting Yurchenko for her second vault. While her Cheng outscored Biles’ by 0.2 points, Andrade’s average trailed Biles’ by 0.344 points.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times .
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