Floor Exercise, Women

The women’s floor exercise event at the 2012 Summer Olympics had several strong competitors in contention for the gold medal. Kseniya Afanasyeva of Russia was the reigning World Champion while Sandra Izbaşa of Romania was the defending Olympic champion, a three time European Champion (2006, 2008, 2011), and had already won gold in the vault event earlier in the Games. The reigning European Champion was Larisa Iordache, also from Romania, as was the runner-up Cătălina Ponor, a three time Olympic gold medalist from the 2004 Games (including the floor exercises).

The qualification round was won by Aly Raisman of the United States, bronze medalist in the event at the most recent World Championships. Izbașa came in second, followed by Vanessa Ferrari of Italy, the 2007 European Champion. Afanasyeva came in fourth, Ponor in seventh, and Iordache deep in the field at 32nd. Raisman went third in the finals and there was no question that she was the Olympic champion, earning a 15.600 with the highest difficulty and execution scores of the evening. Ponor came out next, putting forth a valiant effort to catch up to Raisman, but in the end the American was untouchable and Ponor settled for silver with 15.200 points. No other competitor scored above 15.000, leaving Aliya Mustafina of Russia to capture bronze, her fourth medal of the Olympics after gold on the uneven bars, silver in the team all-around, and bronze in the individual all-around.