Getty USA's Sunisa Lee competes in the balance beam event of the artistic gymnastics women's team final
On Thursday, July 29, the female gymnasts took to the arena floor again for the individual all-around competition at the 2021 Summer Olympics. There were 24 women total, with only two per country from the larger programs. Here are the results from the all-around competition but be warned of spoilers.
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Sunisa Lee Won the Gold Medal
15.300 for queen Suni Lee on bars!!
Preview for the bars final: Derwael got a 15.266 today 👀
It came down to the final rotation and she won gold by less than two-tenths of a point, but Lee is the individual all-around gold medalist. Here’s how she got there.
Lee got off a great start on the vault, which is one of her weaker events. She performed her vault very well and received a 14.600, which is a few tenths higher than her prelim score on vault.
The second rotation was uneven parallel bars, which is Lee’s strongest event and it showed — she earned a 15.300 on a nearly flawless routine, slightly higher than her prelim score. It was good enough to put her in second place after two events.
The third apparatus was the balance beam. She had a big bobble on her first skill, a series of spins, but she managed to keep her balance and not fall off. The commentators did speculate she left out a second series of spins after that balance check. Lee earned 13.833, which was almost four-tenths of a point lower than her prelim score. But it was still enough to put her in first place going into the floor exercise.
Floor exercise, however, is typically Lee’s weakest event. She’s still very good, but in the prelims, for example, it was her lowest score by almost a full point at a 13.433. In the finals, she managed to improve upon that score slightly, earning a 13.700 — and she needed that. To take first place, she had to do better than her prelim score.
But there was still one gymnast left who could challenge Lee for the gold, Rebeca Andrade from Brazil. Andrade needed better than a 13.8 to take gold, but she stepped out of bounds twice on her routine and only earned a 13.666 to give Lee the gold. Andrade earned the silver and Angelina Melnikova from Russia earned bronze.
Jade Carey’s Results
With Simone Biles withdrawing from the individual all-around competition, the U.S. got to send Jade Carey to the finals. She finished in ninth place during the preliminaries but wasn’t going to get to compete due to the “two per country” rule.
On vault, which is one of Carey’s stronger events, she got off to a good start with a 15.200, which is .844 higher than her preliminary vault score. It had her in second place after one rotation.
On the uneven bars, Carey made a few minor errors and ended up with a 13.500, which is .633 lower than her prelims score but was still enough to keep her in the race for a medal. She was in sixth place after two rotations.
However, Carey’s chances for a medal were most likely over when she fell off the balance beam early in her routine. She got back up and finished, earning an 11.533, but Carey was not going to end up on the podium at that point. That score dropped her to 12th place after three events.
The floor exercise is typically Carey’s best event, though, and she really ended on a high note here. Carey earned a 13.966 and finished in place eighth place. But even if Carey had scored the same as her prelim score on the beam, she still would have only finished in seventh place.
Carey will have a chance to earn individual medals on both the vault and floor exercise when they get to the individual event finals.
The 2021 Tokyo Summer Olympics take place from Friday, July 23 until the Closing Ceremony on Sunday, August 8.
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