Simone Biles Leaps To Fourth Gold Medal With Women’s Floor Win In Rio

Simone Biles continues to dominate the individual gymnastics competition in Rio, cruising to her fourth Olympic Gold Medal following her victory in the women’s floor exercise.

Simone Biles Leaps To Fourth Gold Medal With Women’s Floor Win In Rio

The 19-year-old American superstar rebounded from a bronze medal performance on the beam to dominate the floor, capping her Rio Games with four gold medals and one bronze. Biles is now the fourth American female gymnast to claim five medals in a single Olympics, joining Mary Lou Retton (1984), Shannon Miller (1992) and Nastia Liukin (2008).

Biles scored a 15.966 on the floor, which is considered her best event.

Her signature move is aptly named ‘The Biles’: a double layout with a half-twist and a blind landing. On Tuesday, she nailed the move, finishing it off with a stage leap, which she had not done in her team event performance but added back for the individual all-around.

Her USA teammate Aly Raisman won silver with a routine slightly less difficult than Biles’s, sticking every landing on every tumbling pass. Amy Tinkler of Britain took the bronze medal with a final score of 14.933, after becoming the first female gymnast from the country to compete in a floor final.

Italy’s Vanessa Ferrari finished fourth and China’s Wang Yan placed fifth.

Raisman, who finished with a score of 15.500, claimed her sixth total Olympic medal and her third of these Games (two silver, one gold). Her previous silver came in the individual all-around, also behind Biles, who also won the vault.

Biles is now also the fourth woman in world gymnastics history to win four gold medals in one Olympics. Ecaterina Szabo of Romania (1984), Vera Caslavska of Czechoslovakia (1968) and Larisa Latynina of the Soviet Union (1956) were the first three.

Earlier Tuesday, American Danell Leyva won silver in the parallel bars.

Meanwhile, American track and field star Erik Kynard, a silver medalist in London in 2012, qualified for the final in the men’s high jump, but will face stiff competition from Canadian Derek Drouin, the defending world champion, Bohdan Bondarenko of Ukraine, and Mutaz Essa Barshim from Qatar.

In the beam, Biles’ teammate Laurie Hernandez took silver, while the Netherlands’ Sanne Wevers won gold.

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – AUGUST 16: Gold medalist Simone Biles of the United States celebrates on the podium at the medal ceremony for the Women’s Floor on Day 11 of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games at the Rio Olympic Arena on August 16, 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images)

Article by Pablo Mena