Team, Women

The United States’ vast superiority showed in qualification when they were nearly ten points ahead of second placed China – and less than four points separated China from the eighth placed qualifier Netherlands. Great Britain qualified in fourth place, thanks largely to the bravery of Elissa Downie. She suffered a bad fall during her floor exercise routine and landed awkwardly on her neck. She tried to finish her routine but couldn’t and was led away for medical treatment, but ten minutes later returned to perform in the vault and help Great Britain qualify for the team event, also getting herself into the final of the all-round individual event.

The USA were head and shoulders above the other seven teams and, in addition to having the “The World’s Greatest Gymnast”, Simone Biles, on their team, they had Aly Raisman and Gabby Douglas, the first girls to make consecutive appearances on the US gymnastics team since Amy Chow and Dominique Dawes at Atlanta 1996 and Sydney 2000. Being the oldest member of the US team at 22, Raisman was known as “Grandma” by her teammates.

As the defending Olympic champions, and with back-to-back world titles to their name in 2014-15, the experience of the USA team clearly showed as they won gold by a massive 8.209 points ahead of Russia with China close behind in third. It was the biggest margin of victory at any international tournament since the current marking system was introduced in 2006. The USA ranked number one overall in every discipline and their star, Biles, was ranked one in the vault, beam and floor. Madison Kocian ranked equal one on the uneven bars. The American team called themselves the “Final Five” in honour of their legendary coach Martha Karolyi who was retiring after Rio. China had the silver medal in their hands until the final rotation, when they had a poor floor exercise and scored just 42.066, while Russia posted 45.733 in the vault to snatch the silver by just 0.685 of a point.