Simone Biles earned her seventh Olympic gold medal by soaring to victory in the women's vault final at the Paris Games on Saturday. The 27-year-old averaged 15.300 for her signature Yurchenko double pike and Cheng vaults to claim a second gold on the event eight years after she triumphed in Rio de Janeiro. Rebeca Andrade of Brazil, who finished runner-up to Biles in the all-around final on Thursday, took silver, ahead of American Jade Carey, who captured the bronze, the AP reports. Biles praised Andrade afterward. "She does keep me on my toes but I love competing with her," Biles said, per People. "It's always an honor."
Biles is the second woman to win vault twice, joining Vera Casalavska of Czechoslovakia as a two-time gold medalist on the vault. Casalavska went back to back in 1964 and 1968. Biles now has 10 Olympic medals in her career, tied for third most by a female gymnast. The crowd in the packed Bercy Arena roared when Biles was introduced. Wearing a sequined red leotard, she delivered another show-stopping performance. She drilled her Yurchenko double pike, exploding off the block, then flipping backward twice with her hands clasped behind her knees. She landed with a big bounce—a nod to the energy she generates—with her right foot on the out-of-bounds line.
The judges dinged Biles a tenth of a point for that. It hardly mattered. Her score of 15.700 meant she merely needed to avoid disaster on her second vault to win. Instead, she almost stuck her Cheng, which requires a roundoff onto the springboard, then a half-twist onto the block followed by 1½ twists while doing a forward somersault. The ensuing 14.900 meant the rest of the eight-woman field was going for second. Andrade, the vault champion in Tokyo, put together two excellent vaults to claim silver, per the AP, and her third medal of the Games after a silver in the all-around and a bronze in the team final. Andrade's average of 14.966 was well clear of everyone else.
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Carey, who slipped during the women's vault final in Tokyo and finished eighth, earned her third Olympic medal to go with the floor exercise gold she won in Tokyo and the team gold she captured with Biles on Tuesday. Biles will have two more chances to boost her medal haul in Paris. She will compete in the balance beam and floor exercise finals on Monday. Saturday's vault competition may have been Biles' last. She didn't rule out the next Olympics, per the New York Times, because the 2028 host will be Los Angeles. But, she said, "I am getting really old."
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