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PARIS – Simone Biles left nothing to chance in the vault final, leaping high over the table and executing her signature double backflip into a pike position.
It’s called Biles II, the most difficult vault in the world, and it’s named after her because she was the first person to do it in competition. Most people don’t even try it in practice because of the risk of failing.
With a difficulty rating of 6.400, the highest in women’s gymnastics, Biles sometimes calls it her “big gun” that can close out competitions right away. In this case her execution was nearly flawless (9.4) and gave her an impressive score of 15.700 on her first attempt.
At this point, everything was pretty much finished. He added a Cheng (difficulty level 5.6) on his second attempt, which yielded a score of 14.900.
His average over two jumps was 15.300.
That was enough to earn her 10th Olympic medal and her seventh gold medal by winning the individual vault competition on Saturday. It was her third gold medal in three attempts here in Paris. She won gold on Tuesday in the team event and on Thursday in the all-around.
Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, who faced Biles on Thursday in the all-around competition, took silver with a score of 14.966. American Jade Carey took bronze with a score of 14.466.
Biles qualified 0.700 points ahead of Andrade and had a 0.900 degree difficulty advantage, making her very difficult to beat. Once Biles II landed, though, it was a matter of math. No one else in the competition attempted a vault higher than 5.600 difficulty. Most were at 5.000. It was a race for silver.
No other athlete in the competition managed a jump as high as Biles’ average. Andrade’s 15.100 at the Cheng was the closest.
There’s basically never been anything like Simone Biles in gymnastics, let alone on vault, the perfect outlet for her powerful athleticism.
Biles’ 10 Olympic medals place her third all-time among female gymnasts, behind Larisa Latynina, who won 18 during the 1956, 1960 and 1964 Games, and Vera Caslavska of the former Czechoslovakia, who won 11 in 1964 and 1968.
Biles won four golds and a bronze at Rio 2016, a silver and a bronze at Tokyo 2021 and three golds so far here. She has two more events (balance beam and floor) and could move up to second on the all-time list.
One of Biles’ gold medals in Rio was the vault. She is also a two-time world champion on this apparatus and has two skills named after her, the Biles and the Biles II, a double backflip in pike position that reaches the highest degree of difficulty (6.4) in the event.
Biles will compete Monday on beam (6:38 a.m. ET) and floor (8:23 p.m. ET). At 27, she is already the oldest U.S. Olympic gymnast since the 1950s, and it may be Biles’ last time competing under Olympic rings.
(tags to translate)Simone Biles
