Simone Biles makes Olympic history after winning gold medal in women’s vault final

Simone Biles has further cemented her legacy as one of the greatest gymnasts of all time after she took home the gold medal in the women’s vault final on Saturday, marking her third gold medal of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Biles is just the second woman in Olympic history to win the vault twice, having claimed top of the podium at the 2016 Summer Games in Rio.

Biles entered the final with the highest qualifying score of 15.800, more than half a point higher than her fiercest competitor, Rebeca Andrade of Brazil.

She nailed the difficult Yurchenko double pike vault – a complex and difficult vault named after her in 2023 after she became the first female gymnast to land it during international competition – in her first vault, earning her a score of 15.700.

She then immediately followed that up with a less-difficult vault for a 14.900 score, making her average score 15.300 to give her the lead.

Team USA teammate Jade Carey earned her place on the podium with a score of 14.466 for the bronze. Andrade took home the silver medal with a score of 14.966.

She won gold in the women’s gymnastics all-around team final earlier this week, to move past Shannon Miller to have more Olympic medals than any other American gymnast with eight total. But on Thursday, Biles went for more hardware in the women’s individual all-around clinching her sixth gold medal with a dazzling floor exercise routine.

In Conclusion
Biles is the second woman to win the vault twice, joining Vera Casalavska of Czechoslovakia who went back to back in 1964 and 1968. Biles now has 10 Olympic medals in her career, tied for the third most by a female gymnast. She also boosted her medal count at major international competitions to 40, the most by any gymnast.