Women’s gymnastics vault final wraps up

Maria Paseka of Russian Federation averaged 15.253 for silver with Giulia Steingruber of Switzerland averaging 15.216 winning bronze.

Sanne Wevers of the Netherlands won gold in the event with Biles’ teammate Laurie Hernandez winning silver. Biles is also the first American woman to ever win gold on vault.

Biles was the bronze medalist on vault, a downgrade from the silver she’d won the previous two years. In training, she was seen attempting the triple-twisting Yurchenko, a more hard version of the Amanar vault made famous by McKayla Maroney. The strategy paid off.

On the bars, Madison Kocian led the team with a high score of 15.866, while Douglas came in third behind Russia’s Aliya Mustafina, with 15.766.

The raucous crowd was firmly behind the Brazilians, so much so that they cheered loudly as Mikulak stepped out of bounds and had some landing bounces that dropped him to eighth and ensured a medal for the Brazilians. “It’s an unbelievable accomplishment”. Whitlock previously won bronze in the individual all-around, the country’s first gymnastics medal of any kind in 108 years. Madison Kocian of Dallas won the silver medal in the uneven bars, behind Aliya Mustafina of Russian Federation, and Alex Naddour of Queen Creek, Arizona, got the bronze on pommel horse.

Germany defeated the United States 2-1 in the women’s field hockey quarterfinals. She won silver at the 2015 World Championships in dramatic fashion; after she got off the beam, she hurried to her notebook to calculate her own difficulty score.

Allyson Felix is a medal contender in the women’s 400 with the final coming up in the evening.

“I think she’s going to win five”.

A gymnast who did not win a medal got one of the loudest cheers of the day. Being just 4-foot-4, Saraiva is one of the lightest beam workers in Rio, meaning that she seems to float about the 4-inch-wide wooden beam.

Biles, a double world champion on the beam, was rock solid as she spun around 900 degrees on her right toes. While she’s aware of her growing celebrity inside the athlete’s village, Biles and coach Aimee Boorman are trying to remain in the comfortable rhythm Biles and the rest of her “Final Five” teammates follow during any other meet.

Ri’s vault consists of a quarter twist onto the vaulting table then two back flips with a full twist off. Nevertheless, she was showered with love as a tribute video of her career played on the jumbo screen.

Sure, she’d won her third consecutive all-around title, a first for a female gymnast. “And so that’s how we have fun”, Biles said. She just shrugged her shoulders.

The move is so risky that when asked by the New Yorker if she would ever consider trying the skill, she responded, “I’m not trying to die”. You don’t have to be 16 years old and retire by 18.