Uneven Bars, Women

The only non-American woman to win a gold medal at the 2019 World Championships in Stuttgart was Belgium’s Nina Derwael, who captured the uneven bars gold medal. The Belgian led the bars in the Tokyo qualifying competition and Simone Biles just managed to make it to the final despite finishing 10th. Because four members of the ROC team finished in the top eight, only the top two qualified, and therefore allowed Biles to qualify for all four apparatus finals. However, because of her mental health issues in Tokyo, Biles pulled out of the uneven bars, and her place was taken by Mélanie de Jesus dos Santos of France.

The first two in qualification were the double world champion Derwael, and the recently crowned individual all-round Olympic champion Sunisa Lee of America. Lee was the first to go and had a slight setback early in her routine which cost her, and she opened with a score of 14.500. Late replacement dos Santos could only score 14.033 next, and then it was Derwael who impressed with 15.200 and took the lead. Anastasiya Ilyankova of the ROC was third in qualification and posed the only probably threat to the Belgian’s lead, but her 14.833 was only good enough to put her into the silver medal position, and that is where she stayed, with Lee taking the bronze.

Derwael became the first woman to win a gymnastics medal of any colour for Belgium, and was the first person, male or female, to win a gymnastics gold. Belgian’s last Olympic medal was the bronze in the 1920 men’s all-round team (Swedish System) event.