Individual All-Around, Women

Simone Biles went to the Tokyo Olympics as not only the defending champion, but as the winner of nine gold medals at the 2018 and 2019 World Championships. She was hoping to become the first woman since 1968 to retain her all-round title. Fellow American Sunisa Lee was probably one of her biggest threats, while the ROC had a strong team.

After qualifying, Biles and Lee occupied first and third places, with the Brazilian Rebeca Andrade separating them. They were followed by the two ROC gymnasts, the 2019 world all-round bronze medallist Angelina Melnikova, and Vladislava Urazova. Following her disastrous vault in the team all-round competition, however, which saw her miss the rest of the competition, Biles pulled out of the individual all-round and her place was taken by Jade Carey, who had finished ninth in qualifying. The Brazilian Andrade took the lead after the first rotation with a magnificent 15.300 on the vault and held the lead after the second rotation by just 0.066 points from Lee who also put in a 15.300 performance on the uneven bars. At the end of the rotation only 0.800 points separated the top five.

Urazova gave an outstanding performance on the beam and registered a 14.200, the highest beam score of the day, and it kept her in front of Melnikova, who only scored 13.700. The two ROC gymnasts, however, were overtaken by Lee, who also put in a magnificent performance and became the new leader. Last to go was the leader after the first two rotations, Andrade, and she scored 13.566 and slipped into third place. On appeal, however, her score was changed to 13.666 and she went back into second place, just 0.101 points behind Lee. Andrade still had dreams of becoming Brazil’s first ever female gymnast to win an Olympic medal. It was also a remarkable achievement that she was at the Games at all, because she had to fight her way back to fitness after undergoing major re-building surgery on her knee.

The medal positions amongst the leading challengers kept changing throughout the fourth rotation with, firstly, Urazova moving into the gold medal position after her floor exercise and then with the very next routine she was overtaken by Melnikova, whose lively routine scored 13.966. Sunisa Lee then gave a polished performance with excellent control and no steps on landing. She needed 13.467 to move into first place, which she did with a 13.700.

The last to go was Andrade, but two step-outs cost her the gold medal. She held on to the silver with 13.666, however, and did become that first Brazilian woman to win an Olympics gymnastics medal. For Sunisa Lee, she was not only the next in a long line of American winners of the all-round title, but it was the fifth in succession for the USA.