Simone Biles soared to her third gold medal of the Paris Games on Saturday, her gravity-defying Yurchenko double pike propelling her to the women’s vault title, marking her seventh Olympic crown.
Biles, who had already led the United States to team gold and claimed the all-around gold, executed two extraordinary vaults to secure a decisive victory over Olympic and world champion Rebeca Andrade of Brazil. American Jade Carey earned the bronze medal.
Biles dominated with her opening vault, the Yurchenko double pike, now named the Biles II. Her astonishing height off the vault table, despite a step back on landing, garnered an execution score of 9.4 and a difficulty score of 6.4, culminating in a total score of 15.700.
Her second vault, a Cheng, was equally impressive, scoring 14.900 and resulting in a winning average of 15.300.
“I’m super excited, ecstatic for how my vaults were,” Biles, 27, said. “I wanted to perform them well, and I think you saw that today. I put in a lot of work to be able to perform that vault (the Yurchenko double pike) well. I’m excited I got to show that here during finals today.”
Andrade started strong with a beautiful Cheng vault that earned 15.100 points but had a slight hop on her second vault, scoring 14.833 for an average of 14.966. Although she hinted at possibly performing a new triple-twisting Yurchenko to challenge Biles, she opted not to attempt it during the competition, expressing a future desire to showcase it “just because it’s so cool.”
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Carey, the final competitor among the eight finalists, secured bronze with an average score of 14.466, surpassing North Korea’s An Chang-ok. “It was stressful being the last one up, but I knew that if I stayed in my lane, stayed focused, everything would work out well,” said Carey, who won floor gold in Tokyo but finished eighth in the vault final.
Biles, dressed in shimmering red, beamed as she received another enthusiastic reception at Bercy Arena. Her smile remained as she acknowledged the judges after her second vault and celebrated with her coach, Laurent Landi.
The US gymnastics star now holds a total of 40 world and Olympic medals — 30 of them gold. She has the opportunity to add to her tally on Monday in the balance beam and floor exercise finals, completing her triumphant return to the Olympic stage after overcoming the “twisties” in Tokyo.
