Biles wins her 3rd gold at Paris Olympics

PARIS: Simone Biles was all smiles after she landed her first vault, a 6.4 difficulty Yurchenko double pike that no other female gymnast could do on Saturday. The American took the women’s vault title for her third gold at the Paris Olym pic Games and seventh over all, scoring a massive 15.300 points. “I put in a lot of work to be able to perform that vault (the Yurchenko double pike) well,” Biles said. “I’m excited I got to show that here during finals today.” The newly-crowned women’s all-around champion has not yet lost a competition she entered in Paris, and is now tied with Vera Caslavska, a Czech gymnast, as the only female athletes who have won the second most gold medals in gymnastics. She is only two gold med als away from the all-time leader, Larissa Latynina of Soviet Union. Defending champion Rebeca Andrade of Brazil added another silver to her all-around runner-up finish, using excellent execution in her two vaults to record an average 14.966 to earn Bra zil’s third medal in Paris. The country had grabbed a bronze in the women’s team final. Jade Carey finished third with 14.466, giving the US its fifth medal in women’s gym nastics in Paris. Tokyo bronze medalist Yeo Seo-jeong of South Korea lurched forward landing her second vault, a misstep result ing in a seventh-place finish. With individual appara tuses kicking off, the sold-out Bercy Arena was so quiet when contenders were in action that shouts of “run”, “come on” could be heard throughout the stadium. Carlos Edriel Yulo used a tough routine to take the men’s floor exercise title. The 2019 world champion scored 15.000 points, eclipsing the defending champion Artem Dolgopyat of Israel by a mere 0.034 and delivered the Philip pines first medal in the sport. “Before I came here, this routine wasn’t that consis tent. In the qualifications, I played it very safe. Today, I felt I couldn’t hold back and hesitate. If I really wanted to win, I needed to give my everything,” Carlos said when asked about raising his diffi culty in the final. Carlos’ difficulty was matched only by Jake Jar man, whose execution was down a bit to take the bronze with 14.933 and gave Britain its first gymnastics medal in Paris. China’s Zhang Boheng, the men’s all-around silver medalist, stepped out of bounds with both his feet landing the first tumbling pass and finished eighth. In the men’s pommel horse, Rhys McClenaghan claimed the title with 15.533 to win the first Olympic medal for Ireland in gymnastics. The two-time world champion fin ished 0.100 ahead of Kazakh stan’s Nariman Kurbanov, who took the silver. Stephen Nedoroscik got the bronze with 15.300 for the country’s second medal in men’s gymnastics. The US won a team bronze days ear lier. —Xinhua