It’s official: Simone Biles is the first U.S. gymnast ever to win four Olympic gold medals.
After winning the team final and individual all-around title last week, Biles won her third gold medal in the vault final on Sunday, making her one of three members of an exclusive three-gold club. For 48 hours, she shared the record with her Rio teammates Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas. Today, with her win in the floor exercise final, she set a new one.
Not since 1968 has a gymnast won four gold medals at one Olympic games. Biles is one of only a handful of gymnasts ever to take gold this many times, and no woman has done it since Romanian Ecaterina Szabo in 1984, meaning Biles is the first in a generation to pull it off.
She took gold today with a score of 15.966. Raisman took silver, with a score of 15.5, and Amy Tinkler of Great Britain took the bronze with a 14.933.
Biles had been favored to win five golds at these games, but a slip-up in the balance beam final yesterday made that impossible; after a wobble so big it incurred almost the same deduction as a fall, she finished in third place (a fall incurs a 1.0 deduction, and putting your hands down on the beam to prevent a fall, as Biles did, incurs up to a 0.8 deduction). That’s right: She basically fell off the beam, and still walked away with a bronze medal. That’s how good Simone Biles is.
On floor, she qualified for the final in first position, and posted the highest floor score in the team final by a wide margin. She is the reigning world floor champion. She was widely considered a lock for a gold medal on floor, just as Raisman, who qualified in second place and then took silver in the all-around, was considered a very safe bet for second.
