By: Nina He

It should be little surprise that the best female gymnast in the world has won gold at the Olympics once again. On Thursday, to fans’ delight, Simone Biles beat her biggest rival, Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, who got silver.

As the competition on Thursday progressed, the gold medal bounced back and forth from Andrade to Biles, but in the last event, Biles pulled ahead to earn first place in the scoring.

While doing the vault, which is an event in artistic gymnastics where athletes sprint down a runway, jump onto a springboard, and propel themselves over a vaulting table, Biles performed the Yurchenko double pike, which no female gymnastics have ever performed.

Andrade performed a Cheng, which was an easier skill. She didn’t make any major mistakes while Biles took a step back upon landing, but her difficulty level gave Biles an eight tenths point advantage over Andrade, putting her in the lead.

Now the athletes moved over to the uneven bars. Here, Biles made a major mistake. She positioned herself incorrectly while flipping to the lower bar, bending her legs to avoid a collision with the mat. She had to do an extra swing to regain rhythm. Both Andrade and Kaylia Nemour of Algeria pulled ahead of her, leaving Biles in third place.

The second to last event was beam. While every other medalist wobbled on the beam, Biles’s routine was much harder, and she didn’t make as many mistakes as Andrade did. Andrade, on the other hand, made several major mistakes in an easier routine. Going into the final event, Andrade still remained a few tenths of a point in front of Biles.

The last event was floor, and the pressure was on. If Biles didn’t get ahead, she would be allowing Andrade to get gold and would have to settle for a silver herself.

With her almost perfect floor routine, Biles pulled ahead of Andrade, securing her second gold medal and becoming the first woman in nearly half a century to earn two gold medals in the individual all-around event.