Olympic swimming ends on historic high note in Rio

It’s now three down, two to go for Simone Biles, as the American sensation seeks to become the first gymnast to win five gold medals in a single Olympics (only six are possible).

After becoming the first Black woman to take home the gold in an individual swim event, Simone made a decision to give fans world wide a bit of shock and awe as she also became the first American woman to place in the top two in two different individual swim events and we love it!

If the USA women had not captured the landmark medal, Michael Phelps and the men’s 4×100 medley relay squad would have done so, the quartet winning gold in the next event in the pool, which was also the final race on the Rio swimming program. Biles beat silver medalist Maria Paseka of Russian Federation by 0.703 points and bronze medalist Giulia Steingruber by 0.75 points.

Uzbekistan’s Oksana Chusovitina, competing in her 7th Olympics at 41 years old, attempted the tricky Produnova vault in hopes of making the podium. LaShawn Merritt will attempt to win his second gold in the 400, eight years after he won his first.

At a Games where the United States set the record for the biggest number of female athlete ever at an Olympics, four of them reached a historic milestone. If she successfully landed it in competition, it would be named the Hong. Paseka was the only other gymnast to top 15 on each of her vaults.

Paseka, the silver medalist, told Reuters: “I could have done the second vault better”. Chusovitina said afterward she’s already planning to train all the way to the 2020 games in Tokyo.

For her next vault, Biles turned to a Cheng – a hard vault that, compared to the Amanar, is worth an extra tenth of a point on the judges’ scale – and performed it almost flawlessly. But not even Biles, who may be the greatest women’s gymnast of all time, wanted to make it a regular part of her routine. Her score was the highest of the group: 16.033.

She was proven right Sunday.

“She was like, no, I think it’ll be easier for me to just fix my Cheng”, Boorman said. The incredible Olympian averaged an insanely impressive 15.966 in her two events, and she was rewarded with the gold medal August 14. She has produced the highest scores in each of those disciplines throughout the week – qualifying, team and all-around.