Simone Biles win gold in vault final at World Gymnastics Championship
Simone Biles easily captured the gold in the vault final of the 48th Artistic Gymnastics World Championships at the Aspire Dome Friday evening. The American went for less difficult attempts that gave her the victory with Shallon Olsen of Canada winning the silver and Mexico’s Alexa Moreno bringing home the country’s first medal in world championship gymnastics.
After winning the all-around finals on Thursday, Biles showed some anger for missing the landing on her signature move on vault and falling off the balance beam. Despite the mistakes, the American would try to put that aside after making history as the only woman to win the all-around four times. She was just a few away from the all-time record for most medals won at the world championships with her qualifying for the vault final.
Eight competitors began the competition with North Korean Rye Yong Pyong going big with the move called the “Amanar” but couldn’t complete the landing. On her second attempt, Pyong landed on her feet despite having her center body too low. She averaged a 13.616 which Elisabeth Black overtook with a 14 on her first attempt and a Tsukahara on her second that brought her overall to a 14.116.
Biles started her vault attempt with a difficulty value of six where she landed but took a step with her right foot landing on the outer line. She scored a 15.266 before dropping her second to a 5.8 difficulty value which produced her an average score of 15.366 which would stand on top for the remainder of the competition. Moreno had a lot of power from both of her vault attempts that put her behind Biles with a 14.508 for the second position.
Olsen took the second place with her vaults that were as high as Biles DV. With a 14.6 and 14.433, it gave the Canadian a 14.516 with one to go. Legendary gymnast Oksana Chusovitina was last to go for the apparatus final and put down a big second attempt that had her landing on both feet.
She scored a 14.300 that would put her short of bronze which Moreno took as her biggest achievement of the competition so far.