By: Shawn Wang
Simone Biles just won gold in gymnastics at the 2024 Olympics. She performed some of the hardest tricks in the world that only she can do. She competed in four events: vault, bars, beam, and floor. She earned gold for all events except for floor, in which she won silver.
Simone first competed in the vault. She did the world’s most difficult vault, the Yurchenko double pike, which no woman has ever done before. The difficulty level helped her get eight tenths of a point more than Rebeca Andrade from Brazil, who performs a trick called the Cheng.
When competing at bars, Simone made a significant mistake. She positioned herself incorrectly on the transition from the high bar to the low bar. For this, she had to bend her leg and do an extra swing to regain her balance. This mistake knocked her into third place at the halfway mark of the competition.
All athletes at least had some slight wobbles on the balance beam, but Simone kept hers to a minimum, which brought her back to number one, completing her routine with an extremely difficult full-twisting double back dismount.
With her special floor routine, Simone stayed in first place and became the first woman in over half a century to win two Olympic all-around titles. Her routine included two skills named after her: a triple-twisting double back flip and a half-twisting double back flip. During her routine, Andrade stepped out of bounds once but still placed high enough and won silver.
Simone has been doing gymnastics since she was 6, and now she is one of the best in the world. Her talent and determination are an inspiration to all young gymnasts.
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