One of the most highly anticipated Olympic events, gymnastics proves to be a thrilling sport to watch every Olympics—and the Paris Olympics did not fail to continue this reputation. Phenomenal gymnasts from multiple countries went head-to-head in both men’s and women’s gymnastics, including the U.S.’s Suni Lee, Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, and, of course, the U.S.’s Simone Biles. In the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Simone Biles dropped from multiple of her competitions due to a case of the “twisties,” drawing the world’s attention to her to see how she would perform at these Games.
The event finals started with the women’s team all-around final. The countries of Romania, Great Britain, Canada, Brazil, the U.S., Japan, China, and Italy faced off during this event, with each country’s gymnasts putting on spectacular performances on vault, balance beam, uneven bars, and floor. After dazzling performances from the U.S. team of Simone Biles, Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, and Hezley Rivera, they, as expected, took gold, regaining their title after coming second in this event in Tokyo. Second and third place made gymnastics history, with Italy taking silver, their first medal in this event in 96 years, and Brazil’s winning bronze, their first-ever medal in this event, despite an injury sustained by Flavia Saraiva during uneven bar warm-ups.
The men’s team all-around final was no less historic, with the countries of Great Britain, the USA, Ukraine, Italy, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, and China competing in parallel bars, horizontal bars, still rings, vault, floor, and pommel horse. During team USA’s last routine of the night, Stephen Nedorscik performed on pommel horse—and made himself a national hero in the process. His routine was spectacular; it boosted the USA into third place, its first medal in this event since the 2008 Olympics, with Nedorscik making history for himself and his country.
China and Japan intensely fought for gold, and it looked like China was winning—but after a stunning horizontal bar routine from Hashimoto Daiki, Japan managed to beat China by a margin of 0.5 points, scoring gold and forcing China to settle for silver.
The individual all-around final for both men and women followed the team event. In the men’s final, Japan once again managed to surpass China on the podium. After falls from both Hashimoto Daiki (Japan) on pommel horse and from Zhang Boheng (China) on floor, both were out of gold medal contention, leaving Oka Shinnosuke of Japan to take first. Boheng still managed to score a spectacular silver, while China’s Xiao Ruoteng took bronze.
The women’s individual all-around final, the most highly anticipated gymnastics event, did not fail to impress—it had the world on its toes every step of the way. With some of the world’s greatest female gymnasts, competition was extremely fierce. Many gymnasts had spectacular routines on various apparatuses, but many also had falls and disappointments. As everyone knew it probably would, it came down to Suni Lee, Rebeca Andrade, and Simone Biles. Lee had excelled on bars, with Andrade and Biles excelling on vault, and the floor event determined who would be the winner. All three had spectacular routines, though there were some steps out-of-bounds; however, as the last competitor, Biles’ score came in as a 59.131, allowing her to regain the highest honor in women’s gymnastics, the all-around gold medal, after her unfortunate Tokyo performance. Andrade and Lee both were victorious as well, finishing in second and third place, respectively.
Carlos Yulo grabbed the world’s attention in men’s gymnastics during the individual event finals, winning a phenomenal two gold medals for the Philippines in both the floor and vault finals. Yulo made history with these medals, becoming the first man to win gold for the Philippines and giving the country its first-ever Olympic gymnastics medal. Artur Davtyan (Armenia) and Harry Hepworth (Great Britain) followed Yulo in silver and bronze, respectively, in the vault final, while Artem Dolgopyat (Israel) got second and Jake Jarman (Great Britain) got third on floor. Stephen Nedorscik continued his amazing Olympic performance during the pommel horse final, getting his second bronze medal in Paris. Nariman Kurbanov of Kazakhstan and Rhys McClenaghan of Ireland scored their countries’ first-ever Olympic gymnastics medals, with the former winning silver and the latter winning gold.
