Wow!!! Saying that yesterday’s artistic gymnastics competitions were a roller coaster of emotions is a complete understatement.
Let’s start with the men’s final on the high bar. The gold medal came down to Shinnosuke Oka from Team Japan and Ángel Barajas from Team Colombia, who both scored 14.533 on their high bar routines. Remember, artistic gymnastics scores are a based on a combination of the routine’s difficulty score and the execution score. I learned yesterday that when there’s a tie, the winner is the one with the higher execution score. In this case, that was Shinnosuke, whose execution score was .73 points higher than Ángel’s.
Deep sigh. Now let’s head over to women’s artistic gymnastics. In an unexpected turn of events, both Suni Lee and Simone Biles from Team USA, along with Team Brazil’s Julia Soares and Team Romania’s Sabrina Maneca-Voinea, all fell off the balance beam during the finals, leaving the door wide open for Team Italy’s Alice D’Amato to win the gold medal in this event. Alice’s gold medal makes her Team Italy’s first Olympic champion in women’s gymnastics.
Yesterday’s balance beam results also mark the first time since 2000 that no athlete from Team USA medaled in this event.
The drama only intensified as the competition continued into the women’s floor exercise finals. Team USA’s Simone Biles and Team Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade were expected to take the one and two spots, although the order could’ve gone either way. Ultimately, Simone stepping out of bounds twice during her tumbling passes put Rebeca at the top of the podium by .033 points. Nothing too dramatic there. If you’ve been watching all along, you know that even by Simone’s own admission, Rebeca is the only gymnast able to give Simone a run for her money.
But wait! The fight for third place came down to Team Romania’s Sabrina Voinea and her teammate Ana Barbosu, who both scored 13.7. Because her execution score was higher, the bronze medal was going to Ana. Just a little drama here with the tie.
When the final scores were posted, the medalists began to celebrate, holding their respective countries’ flags.
Now cue the real drama. Meanwhile, Team USA’s coaches submitted an official inquiry into Jordan’s score. When challenging, you can only appeal for a one-tenth point change on the difficulty part/start value of your score. In Jordan’s case, her coaches argued that the Gogean (a split leap with a 1.5-turn) she performed during her routine was not incorporated into the calculation of her difficulty score. The judges agreed and Jordan’s score went from 13.666 to 13.766, placing her in third place.
It’s at this point that I started to sob…not just cry, but sob. As Jordan was collapsing in tears of joy, I was collapsing in tears of joy. But then the camera moved over to Ana, who let the Romanian flag slowly slip through her fingers as the reality of the situation set in. By this point, we were both a hot inconsolable sobbing mess.
Whew, child!
I collected myself just in time to watch the medal ceremony. As Rebeca ascended to the podium, both Jordan and Simone bowed down to her. This illustration of queens celebrating another queen took me all the way out. Real heavy tears poured from my eyes, and it was at that point I was officially done with these Olympic games for the day.
Yesterday’s events concluded the artistic gymnastics portion of these Olympic games. Rebeca Andrade leaves Paris as the most decorated Olympic athlete in Team Brazil’s history. Jordan Chiles leaves with her first individual medal. And of course, the undisputed GOAT, Simone Biles leaves as the most decorated Team USA gymnast of all time.
Just an aside, Simone, who is 4’8 has a higher vertical apex (12 feet) than 7’4 Victor Wembanyama.
Just another aside, now that artistic gymnastics is over, I need y’all to bring that same energy over to rhythmic gymnastics competition.
One last aside, Grant Hill sitting on the edge of his seat eating popcorn during artistic gymnastics finals was all of us.
Alright, I did manage to gather myself enough to check out a couple of other events. I caught the last lap of the women’s 5000m, where there was a little bit of drama too. Due to a collision with Team Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay, Team Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon was disqualified. After an official inquiry, however, Faith was reinstated and won the silver medal in this event.
I also caught the women’s discus throw final. Here’s my question, must all of the throwers (discus, hammer, javelin, and shotput) make so much noise when they throw? Good grief!
Okay, I guess I really wasn’t quite done for the day because I also watched the men’s pole vault final. Thankfully, the event went off without a snag (). Team Sweden’s Armand Duplantis, who was actually born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana, won the gold medal and set a new world record.
Lastly, it’s bad enough that I didn’t get to attend these Olympic games, but I didn’t even get invited to Team USA’s celebration of 50 years of Olympic basketball at the Palais Brongniart. Yeah, I’m big mad about that. The party featured a concert by Snoop, who gave out rose gold, diamond encrusted necklaces. Do I want one? Yes! Would I wear one? No! But that’s not the point.
). Team Sweden’s Armand Duplantis, who was actually born and raised in Lafayette, Louisiana, won the gold medal and set a new world record.