1 of 2 | Simone Biles vaulted the U.S. women’s gymnastics team to a seventh consecutive gold medal, and her 20th gold medal, at the Artistic Gymnastics World Championships on Wednesday, in Antwerp, Belgium. Photo by Olivier Matthys/EPA-EFE
Oct. 4 (UPI) — Simone Biles vaulted the U.S. women’s gymnastics team to a seventh consecutive gold medal, and her 20th gold medal at the world championships Wednesday, following her two-year hiatus from competition.
Biles, 26, secured the team’s victory with a solid final floor performance at the 2023 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships in Antwerp, Belgium, after teammate Joscelyn Roberson suffered an injury during warmups.
Leanne Wong substituted for Roberson in the vault and floor. Skye Blakely and Shilese Jones rounded out the final team.
In the first three apparatus, Biles recorded 14.800 in the vault, 14.466 on the bars and 14.300 on the beam. The seven-time Olympic medalist scored an impressive 15.166 in her final performance on the floor, as she smiled throughout her routine, gained huge height on her three tumbling passes and nailed every landing.
Biles’ performance secured Team USA’s top spot on the podium with an overall score of 167.729. Brazil took silver with its first team medal ever at the world championships, as France took home the bronze medal.
“It was a night of nail-biting competition and historic moments as the U.S. Women clinched their seventh-consecutive team Gold Medal at the Artistic World Championships!” USA Gymnastics wrote in a congratulatory post on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
It was a night of nail-biting competition & historic moments as the US Women clinched their seventh-consecutive team Gold Medal at the Artistic World Championships!
Read the recap to see how it happened! ⤵️https://t.co/6j5cPPesoR— USA Gymnastics (@USAGym) October 4, 2023
Following the 2020 Summer Olympic games in Tokyo, Biles took a two-year mental health hiatus after she was unable to conquer what gymnasts call the “twists” and withdrew from several finals at the games. Biles said she felt the “weight of the world” on her shoulders, before winning a bronze medal in the balance beam event.
As Biles works to reach the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, she is one step closer to becoming the most-decorated gymnast of all time. Between the Olympics and World Championships, she currently has 33 medals, including 26 world medals. With her 34th win, Biles would become the gymnast with the most medals ever, according to USA Today.
“Everything that we’re doing leading up to Paris 2024 is very intentional,” Biles told NBC in a recent interview. “We’ve kind of been playing it on the down-low this time, making sure mentally and physically are both intact.”
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