Simone Biles secured her third gold medal of the Paris Games on Saturday, executing a gravity-defying Yurchenko double pike to win the women’s vault title, marking her seventh Olympic crown.
Biles, who previously led the United States to team gold and claimed all-around gold, delivered two remarkable vaults to secure a dominant victory over Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, the Olympic and world champion. American Jade Carey took the bronze.
Biles set the tone with her opening vault, the Yurchenko double pike, now named the Biles II. Her impressive height off the vault table and precise execution, despite a step back on landing, earned her a combined score of 15.700, with a 9.4 execution score and a 6.4 difficulty score.
Biles followed up with another stunning vault, a Cheng, scoring 14.900 for a winning average of 15.300. “I’m super excited, ecstatic for how my vaults were,” said Biles, 27. “I wanted to perform them well, and I think you saw that today.”
Andrade, who opened with a flawless Cheng vault scoring 15.100, finished with an average of 14.966 after her second vault. She had considered attempting a new triple-twisting Yurchenko but decided against it, although she hopes to perform it in the future.
Carey, the final competitor among the eight finalists, secured bronze with an average score of 14.466, edging out North Korea’s An Chang-ok. “It was stressful being the last one up, but I knew that if I stayed in my lane, stayed focused, everything would work out well,” said Carey.
Biles, dressed in shimmering red, received a rapturous reception at Bercy Arena. She smiled broadly as she acknowledged the judges and high-fived her coach Laurent Landi.
With this victory, Biles now boasts a total of 40 world and Olympic medals, 30 of which are gold. She has the opportunity to add to this tally on Monday in the balance beam and floor exercise finals, continuing her triumphant return to the Olympic stage after overcoming the “twisties” in Tokyo.
