Floor Exercise, Women

Once again there was talk of nobody other than the American Simone Biles taking her fourth gold in the final women’s event of the Rio competition. After all, she had won the world title in 2013, 2014 and 2015 and was the highest scoring qualifier. Perhaps her compatriot, and the defending Olympic champion, Aly Raisman could pose a threat, as she was the second best qualifier albeit 0.458 of a point behind Biles. The third best qualifier was the 2013 world silver medallist Vanessa Ferrari, one of two Italians in the final. Kseniya Afanasyeva was second at the 2015 World Championships in Glasgow and was a member of the Russian team that took gold at the 2016 European Championships, but a kidney infection forced her to pull out of the Olympics a few weeks before they started.

The fourth gymnast to take to the floor was Amy Tinkler, the youngest member of he entire GB team in Rio, having turned 16 in October 2015. She overtook Wang Yan’s 14.666 to move into first place with a 14.933. Suddenly, a week after taking exams at school back in England, she was sitting in the gold medal position at the Olympic Games, but realistically she knew that, with Biles still to go, she wouldn’t hold on to it. Indeed it was the American to go next and, with a near flawless performance, saw a score of 15.966. Aly Raisman was the penultimate gymnast and she moved into second place with 15.500 and now Tinkler had an anxious wait to see if the Italian Ferrari, the last to perform, would deprive her of her bronze medal. Ferrari set off with a good routine and looked as though she would snatch the medal from the young British girl, but she slightly lost her balance at the end of her routine and a long deliberation by the judges scored her 0.167 of a point less than Tinkler, a memorable bronze for the 16-year-old. The day belonged to Simone Biles, however, as she overtook Shannon Miller as the most successful American gymnast with a total of 19 world and Olympic medals. She also became only the fifth woman to win four gymnastic gold medals at one Olympics after greats Larysa Latynina 1956, Ágnes Keleti 1956, Vêra Cáslavská 1968, and Ecaterina Szabo in 1984. Biles helped the United States to win eight of the 11 women’s medals it was possible to win in Rio.