American gymnastics star Simone Biles performed brilliantly in the vault final on Aug. 3, winning her seventh Olympic gold medal. It is also the second time Biles has claimed the vault gold medal, eight years after her triumph in Rio de Janeiro. It makes her the second woman gymnast to win the vault twice.
On her first vault, Biles completed the incredibly difficult Yurchenko double pike, leaping off the block, then flipping backward twice with her hands clasped behind her knees. Her only mistake, a foot landing on the out-of-bound line, lost her a tenth of a point. The judges granted her a score of 15.700, meaning that she only needed a decent performance on her second vault to win. Her following Cheng vault earned her a 14.900 score, securing her the gold medal spot.
With Biles taking home silver in the floor final on Aug. 5, her international medal count is now at 41 – 11 Olympic and 30 World Championship medals. The achievement extends her record as the most decorated gymnast in the world.
Biles is now 27 years old, putting her at the older end of the spectrum for gymnasts, but she continues to stun the world with her performance. While Biles stated she was officially retiring her Yurchenko double pike vault after her success at the Paris Olympics, she didn’t rule out her return to the 2028 Olympic Games as it would take place in Los Angeles.