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Simone Biles landed her signature ‘Biles II’ on the vault to win a third Olympic gold medal of Paris 2024.
The American added to her individual and team all-around medals with her first apparatus title of the Games.
Biles had performed the Yurchenko double pike in qualifying, becoming the first woman to complete it at the Olympics.
The move involved a round-off back handspring onto the table with two backward flips in pike position and it scored Biles a huge 15.700.
It took the pressure off her second attempt with Biles electing for a safer move, and her combined score of 15.300 was comfortable enough to win gold.
Biles knocked off the defending vault champion Rebeca Andrade, who the American also beat in the individual all-around.
Andrade was again Biles’ closest competitor and claimed silver with a score of 14.966. Jade Carey ensured a second medal for Team USA with bronze.
With a seventh Olympic gold medal of her career, Biles moves within two of the all-time gymnastics record held for the past 60 years by Larisa Latynina.
Biles still has two more individual finals to come in Paris, coming on the floor and balance beam. The 27-year-old has now won 10 Olympic medals in total to add to her 23 World Championship titles.
She said in a TikTok posted from the Olympic village earlier this week that the vault was the event she was “most nervous” about.
And although Biles fell onto her back during her warm-up, she nailed the Biles II with two backward rotations in pike position, earning what was by far the highest score of the day.
“I’m super excited, ecstatic for how my vaults were,” Biles 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.”
It has been a triumphant return to the Olympic stage for Biles, who was one of the biggest stories of the Tokyo Games when, as favourite to win multiple golds, she pulled out of most events after suffering from ‘the twisties’, where a gymnast loses sense of where they are in the air.
She faced high-profile criticism in some quarters and has been working with a therapist in Paris.
“The negative comments are painful up to a certain point,” she said. “They hurt but I’m still in therapy working on all that, to make sure my mental health is well. But they (the critics) are really quiet now, so that’s strange.
“After all these years of putting the mental work in, it’s paid off. I’m super excited to be on this stage again.
“The Olympics is such a draining process for the athletes, and it’s multiple days of competition, so you definitely have to be on top of your mental as well as physical (health). As long as we’re doing that, then we’re good. And so far I feel good.
“Once we’re out here, the floor is our stage. It feels so freeing for us because we’re in our element, we’re having fun, we’re doing what we love to do.”
Includes reporting from PA
