On Sunday, newly crowned Olympic all-around champ Suni Lee will compete for the gold medal on uneven bars. The American could do it — but it should be a very hotly contested final in the Tokyo Olympics.
Simone Biles announced on Saturday that she had withdrawn from both the vault and bars finals and on Sunday that she was pulling out of the floor exercise, leaving the floor and vault individual medals wide open. American MyKayla Skinner replaced Biles on vault and made the most of the opportunity, winning silver in an epic battle for the podium. On the men’s side, the United States’ Yul Moldauer competed on floor and Alec Yoder could medal on pommel horse.
It all started at 4 a.m. ET — and we’ve got all the action below with live updates throughout.
Olympics medal tracker | Schedule
Women’s vault: Andrade continues to wow, and Skinner’s unlikely Olympic medal
One week ago, MyKayla Skinner thought that her Olympic competition had ended in the qualification round. Sunday, she stood on an Olympic podium, a silver medalist on vault.
With defending Olympic vault champion Simone Biles — whose withdrawal placed Skinner into the event — loudly cheering her on from the stands, Skinner opened the meet with a clean Cheng. It was her best vault of the Games and earned a 15.033, a higher score than either of her vaults during qualifying. On her second vault, an Amanar, Skinner took a slight hop to the left on her landing but kept her feet in bounds, good enough for a 14.8 and an overall score of 14.916.
Brazilian Rebeca Andrade, coming off of her Olympic silver medal in the all-around, competed two gymnasts later with the same vaults and more amplitude, besting Skinner by a little over a tenth of a point and ultimately edging her for gold. Brazil had never won an Olympic medal in women’s gymnastics until earlier this week, and now Andrade has won two.
Unlike in qualifying and team competition, gymnasts are not provided with what is known as a “one touch warmup” or a last-minute opportunity to warm up on the competition apparatus immediately before they compete. That rule has been highly debated, as the conversation at these Games has centered around athlete health and safety, especially in gymnastics.
On Jade Carey’s first vault, she mis-stepped on the runway as she approached the springboard and somehow had the wherewithal to throw just a tuck off the table. She saved her body from injury, but the mistake ended her night. Immediately, gymnastics fans took to twitter to call for #onetouchfinals. Impressively, though, Carey regrouped, went back to the start of the runway and performed a beautiful Amanar. Her dad, Brian, who is also her coach, hugged her tightly and consoled her after her turn.
Korean gymnast Yeo Seo-jeong performed a vault named for her and — 25 years after her father took silver in the event at the 1996 Games — earned the bronze. — Alyssa Roenigk
Final results:
Rebeca Andrade, Brazil – 15.083
MyKayla Skinner, USA – 14.916
Yeo Seo-jeong, Korea – 14.733
Alexa Moreno, Mexico – 14.716
Angelina Melnikova, ROC – 14.683
Liliia Akhaimova, ROC – 14.666
Shallon Olsen, Canada – 13.066
Jade Carey, USA – 12.416
Men’s floor exercise: History for Israel
In the first of four gymnastics event finals on Sunday at the Ariake Gymnastics Centre, Artem Dolgopyat of Israel won the gold medal on floor.
It was the first ever medal for Israel in gymnastics and is the country’s lone gold medal of the 2020 Olympics thus far, and third medal overall.
Dolgopyat, the 2020 European Champion on the event, had the highest score in qualifying and continued his dominance on Sunday. His mark was tied with Spain’s Rayderley Zapata, but Dolgopyat won the second tiebreak due to a higher difficulty score.
Zapata earned the silver medal and Ruoteng Xiao of China won the bronze.
Yul Moldauer, the only American in the competition, finished in sixth place out of eight. He stuck all but one of his tumbling passes but he caught his foot during a flairs sequence. –D’Arcy Maine
Final results:
Artem Dolgopyat, Israel – 14.933
Rayderley Zapata, Spain – 14.933
Ruoteng Xiao, China – 14.766
Sunghyun Ryu, South Korea – 14.233
Milad Karimi, Kazakhstan – 14.133
Yul Moldauer, USA – 13.533
Nikita Nagornyy, ROC – 13.066
Hansol Kim, South Korea – 13.066
Let the individual event finals begin
Sunday is the first day of individual event finals, and it will be a combination of men’s and women’s events. The top eight highest-scoring gymnasts from qualifying advanced on each event, with a maximum of two per country. The preliminary scores are now erased, however. The highest score on Sunday wins.
The schedule — you might want some coffee for this one:
4 a.m. ET: men’s floor
4:45 a.m. ET: women’s vault
5:45 a.m. ET: men’s pommel horse
6:27 a.m. ET: women’s uneven bars
Gold is up for grabs
Women’s vault: With the withdrawal of defending Olympic vault champion and two-time world vault champ Simone Biles, women’s vault could be very suspenseful. American MyKayla Skinner is taking Biles’ spot, and she and fellow American Jade Carey were tied for the highest difficulty totals in qualifying. Either could win gold, though Skinner’s execution scores were lower than Carey’s in the preliminary round. All-around silver medalist Rebeca Andrade scored between Carey and Skinner in qualifying, and she should be considered a favorite as well.
Men’s pommel horse: The American men’s best hope for an Olympic medal comes on this event, with Alec Yoder, a pommel horse specialist, qualifying in fourth. It should be noted, though, that the top three qualifiers (Chinese Taipei’s Lee Chih-kai, Ireland’s Rhys McClenaghan and Japan’s Kohei Kameyama) all tied with a 15.266, and Yoder scored a 15.200. It could be anyone’s gold here.
Women’s uneven bars: Suni Lee was second in preliminaries and has a real chance at the gold here, especially since she didn’t perform her full difficulty on that day. Unfortunately for her, she was drawn to compete first, which is considered a disadvantage in scoring. Watch to see if she connects all of her early release moves. If she does, she has the highest difficulty score in the group.
Belgium’s Nina Derwael was the top qualifier, is a two-time world champion on bars and is probably Lee’s biggest threat in the event, but top to bottom, this entire lineup is stacked. Biles had qualified in the final spot; she will be replaced by France’s Melanie de Jesus dos Santos. — Amy Van Deusen
Can you tell me more about the Americans?
Why, yes, we can. You’ve probably heard of Suni Lee by now, but even if you haven’t, check out this story on her impressive all-around win on Thursday. Bonus: There is a must-see video of her and her dad doing backflips. Trust us and go take a look.
Jade Carey and MyKayla Skinner both qualified to Tokyo as individual competitors, and both have had wild rides during this Olympics. Skinner thought her Olympic experience was over after the qualifying rounds, while Carey took Biles’ spot in the all-around when Biles withdrew.
Source: Read Full Article