The United States women’s gymnastics team won their eighth straight global championship on the floor exercise at the Global Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, and Simone Biles wins the 20th gold medal for outstanding performance.
On Wednesday, Simone Biles, at the age of 26, completed her remarkable comeback after a two-year absence from gymnastics by winning her 20th world championship gold medal, a major contributor to the United States’ historic triumph in the women’s team final.
Biles’s first three apparatus scores were: 14.800 (vault), 14.466 (bars), and 14.300 (beam).
France came in third, while Brazil came in second, giving the South American nation its first-ever medal at the Women’s World Gymnastics Championships.
Skye Blakey, Shilese Jones, Joscelyn Roberson, and Leanne Wong competed with Olympic champion Biles in the team final. In the warmups, though, Roberson, who trains with Biles in Texas, sustained a devastating ankle injury.
When Roberson dropped out, Wong stepped in to compete on the vault and floor, two events the 20-year-old was not supposed to attempt.
The 26-year-old gymnast was the last member of the US team to compete on the floor, and she and her colleagues knew that a strong showing would secure another gold medal for them.
The judges awarded Biles a score of 15.166 because she smiled throughout her performance and executed her twists and turns with Elan, making scarcely any mistakes.
The United States team scored a total of 167.729 points, beating their opponents by just 2.199 points.
In a celebratory post on X (previously Twitter), USA Gymnastics said the US women’s team was in a “league of its own.”
The American gymnast has won 33 medals between the Olympics and the world championships, making him equal for first place with Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus.
Over the last decade, Biles has established herself as a legend of American gymnastics and the all-time medal leader in the United States.
Biles has accumulated a total of 26 medals from world championships, including 20 gold, 3 silver, and 3 bronze.
Returning to the site of her 2013 global championship debut, when the American won all-around and floor exercise gold, silver on vault, and bronze on beam, has been a monumental occasion for Biles.
Before winning gold on Wednesday, Biles had already had a historic first day of competition at the championships.
The American gymnast won the women’s all-around qualifying on Sunday by successfully landing the challenging Yurchenko double pike vault.
This is Biles’ first major competition since the Tokyo 2020 Olympics when she withdrew from many events due to a mental block called “twisties,” which causes a gymnast to temporarily lose sight of where they are in the air.
Since then, she’s shown off the same great skills that got her to the top of the sport in the first place, winning an unprecedented eighth national all-around championship.
After competing in the women’s vault and uneven bars finals on October 7 and the women’s balancing beam and floor exercise finals on October 8, Biles will compete in the women’s individual all-around final on Friday.
Biles made history at the 2018 Artistic World Championships in Antwerp by becoming the first American woman to compete in six such championships.
