Paris Olympics: Simone Biles flies to another gold in vault
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PARIS – Simone Biles wasn’t leaving anything to chance in the Olympics vault final, soaring high off the table and delivering her signature, eponymous double backflip in pike position.
It’s called the Biles II, the hardest vault in the world and named after her because she was the first to ever do it in competition. Most won’t even attempt it in practice due to the danger of missing it.
With a degree of difficulty of 6.400, the highest in women’s gymnastics, Biles sometimes calls it her “big guns” that can close out competitions immediately. In this case her execution was nearly flawless (9.4) giving her a massive 15.700 on her first attempt.
At that point, this was all but over. She added a Cheng (5.6 degree of difficulty) on her second attempt that yielded a 14.900.
Her two vault average was 15.300.
That was enough to sweep her way to a 10th Olympic medal and seventh gold by winning the individual vault competition here Saturday. It was her third gold in three attempts here in Paris. She won gold Tuesday in the team event and Thursday in the all-around.
Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, who dueled Biles Thursday in the all-around competition, took silver with a 14.966 average. American Jade Carey took the bronze with a 14.466 average.
Biles qualified 0.700 in front of Andrade and owned a 0.900 degree of difficulty advantage, making her difficult to defeat. Once she stuck the Biles II though, it was simple math. No one else in the competition attempted a vault with a difficulty above 5.600. Most were at 5.000. It was a competition for silver.
No one else in the competition landed a single vault as high as Biles’ average. Andrade’s 15.100 on the Cheng was the closest.
Essentially, there’s never been anything like Simone Biles in gymnastics, let alone the vault, the perfect outlet for her powerhouse athleticism.
Biles’ 10 Olympic medals moves her into third place all-time for female gymnasts behind Larisa Latynina of the former Soviet Union who won 18 during the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Games and Vera Caslavska of the former Czechoslovakia who earned 11 in 1964 and 1968.
Biles won four golds and a bronze in Rio 2016, a silver and bronze in Tokyo 2021 and three gold so far here. She has two more events (balance beam and floor) and could move to second on the all time list.
One of Biles’ golds in Rio was the vault. She is also a two-time world champion on the apparatus and has two skills named after her, the Biles and the Biles II, a double back flip in pike position that commands the highest degree of difficulty (6.4) in the event.
Biles will compete Monday in the beam (6:38 a.m. ET) and floor (8:23 p.m. ET). At age 27, already the oldest U.S. Olympic female gymnast since the 1950s, it may be the final time Biles competes under Olympic rings.