Simone Biles led the US to the women’s team gold on Tuesday at the world gymnastics championships in Doha, as the US athletes dominated the event to clinch victory for the fourth successive championship.
They led the competition throughout and ended up winning by a comprehensive margin of nearly 10 points, finishing with 171.629.
In contrast to the night before in the men’s event, which went down to the very last gymnast, this felt like a victory parade from start to finish by the peerless US women’s team.
Photo: AFP
“I’m really proud. It’s been a long year,” Biles said afterward. “I think it shows how strong we are, but we still have little things to work on.”
“We are going to keep trying to push ourselves harder, but hopefully we get to celebrate a little bit and then get back to work,” she added.
Russia took silver, amassing a score of 162.863, edging out China who took bronze with 162.396.
This triumph means that the last time that the US failed to take gold in a world team event was back in 2010 in Rotterdam, when they finished with a silver medal.
The margin of victory in Doha was the largest of their six world championship team golds.
As well as a team triumph, it was yet another notable night for superstar Biles.
This latest gold was her 15th medal at a world championship, drawing her level with Gina Gogean of Romania to make her the joint second-highest female medal winner in championship history.
She stands just five medals behind the world-record holding Svetlana Khorkina of Russia.
The 21-year-old has a chance to make history as she is to compete in five more events this week.
Biles’ victory on Tuesday earned her an 11th world gold medal — a record for any woman.
If she claims two more gold medals in Doha, it would make her the first gymnast, female or male, to win 13 world titles. She is the favorite to win several individual events in Doha.
On Tuesday, she high-scored in several apparatus events, including a mark of 15.500 on the vault.
Adding to her growing list of achievements, Biles also had a vault named after her this week and is performing remarkably despite a kidney stone problem which saw her rushed to hospital at the weekend.
Her success comes after she took a year off last year and revealed in January that she was a victim of former US team doctor Larry Nassar, who was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison on charges of sexual assault.
As strongly as Biles performed, another of the night’s stars was her compatriot Morgan Hurd, potentially pointing to close competition later in the week when the individual events begin.
Canada and France were just a point behind China to finish in fourth and fifth places respectively.
China have finished in the top three at the past six world championships in the event.
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