Simone Biles soared to women’s vault gold on Saturday, her gravity-defying Yurchenko double pike propelling her to a third triumph of the Paris Games and her seventh career Olympic crown.
Biles, who led the United States to team gold before grabbing all-around gold, produced a pair of stunning vaults to notch a resounding victory over Olympic and world champion Rebeca Andrade of Brazil.m American Jade Carey took bronze.
Biles took control with her opening vault, the Yurchenko double pike now named the Biles II.
Her height off the vault table was astonishing, and even though her momentum carried her back a step on landing, her execution score of 9.4, along with the 6.4 difficulty score for the move so tough no other woman attempts it, earned 15.700.
Biles produced another soaring effort on her second vault, a Cheng, scoring 14.900 for a winning average of 15.300.
Andrade opened with a beautiful Cheng vault that garnered 15.100 points and had a slight hop on landing of her second vault for a 14.833 and an average of 14.966.
Carey was the last of eight finalists and snatched bronze with an average of 14.466, denying North Korea’s An Chang Ok.
Biles, clad in shimmering red, gave a big smile as she received another rapturous reception at Bercy Arena.
Her smile was just as big as she saluted the judges after landing her second vault, and she was still smiling as she high-fived coach Laurent Landi.
The US great now owns a total of 40 world and Olympic medals — 30 of them gold. She could add to that tally on Monday local time, when she competes in the balance beam and floor exercise finals, capping her return to the Olympic pinnacle after a bout of the disorientating and dangerous mental block called the “twisties” saw her pull out of most of her events in Tokyo.
CYCLING HISTORY MADE IN EPIC RIDE
Belgian Remco Evenepoel survived a late puncture to win Olympic cycling road race gold on Saturday, a week after taking gold in the time trial, to become the first man to complete the double.
The 24-year-old Evenepoel raced solo over the final 15km of the 273km race around Paris to finish well clear of French pair Valentin Madouas and Christophe Laporte, who took silver and bronze.
OLYMPICS BOSS DEFENDS BOXING DUO AFTER ABUSE
Olympic chief Thomas Bach spoke out against the widespread abuse directed towards two women’s boxers in Paris, also declaring boxing should be part of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles if the sport can get its house in order.
Algerian Imane Khelif’s bout with an Italian opponent that only lasted 46 seconds and Taiwanese fighter Lin Yu-ting’s progress in Paris have sparked a row because both were disqualified from last year’s world championships – run by the highly controversial International Boxing Association – after failing gender eligibility tests.
The IOC, which is in open conflict with the Russian-led IBA after expelling it from the Olympic movement, has dismissed the tests as “arbitrary” and “cobbled together.”
The International Boxing Association has not specified what tests were done on Khelif and Taiwan’s Lin Yu Ting, who are both women.
The issue has been complicated by boxing’s governance structure — the IOC seized control of the management of the programme from the International Boxing Association because of concerns about the way the body operated the sport.
In a press conference to review the first half of the Paris Games, International Olympic Committee president Bach was asked if boxing should still feature in the 2028 programme in Los Angeles given the problems raised in Paris.
“Very clearly yes,” Bach replied. “Boxing is one of the most global sports. Boxing is a sport with high social values.” However, Bach stressed that boxing needed to find new international leadership. “First of all, we want boxing in the programme of the Olympic Games. This is the target. But boxing can only be in the Olympic Games in Los Angeles if we have a reliable partner,” he said.
“So now the national boxing federations, they have to make their choice. It’s up to them.
“If they want their athletes to win medals in Olympic Games in a fair competition, with an international federation with a good reputation, with good governance, with a clear anti-doping policy, with financial transparency, then they must find an international federation as a partner for the IOC.
“It is in their hands.”
Bach condemned the social media reaction to Khelif and Lin, with some including former US president Donald Trump framing the issue as men fighting against women.
“Everybody in our world apparently feels obliged to say everything about everything without really considering the sometimes very complex circumstances,” the German said.
Bach said anyone questioning the two boxers should “come up with a scientific-based new definition of who is a woman and how can someone who is born, raised, competing and having a passport as a woman cannot be considered a woman”.
UGLY SCENES IN FOOTBALL BLOW-UP
France’s grudge match with Argentina ended in ugly scenes after Jean-Philippe Mateta scored the only goal to put the hosts into the Olympic semi-finals on Friday with a 1-0 win, joining Spain, Morocco and Egypt.
Tensions spilled over at full-time in Bordeaux with rival players and staff clashing on the pitch and confrontations continuing down the tunnel.
Crystal Palace striker Mateta struck five minutes into the quarter-final, meeting Michael Olise’s corner with a superb near-post header.
That proved enough for the hosts, coached by Thierry Henry, to reach the last four, where they face Egypt.
Friday’s clash was the first meeting of the nations since Argentina players were recorded singing racist chants about their French counterparts as they celebrated winning the Copa America in mid-July.
FIFA announced it would investigate the chants, which targeted France’s star striker Kylian Mbappe among others and included racist and homophobic insults.
The Argentina team were met with a hostile welcome, where the crowd loudly jeered their national anthem as the sides met for the first time since the 2022 World Cup final, which the South Americans won on penalties.
Henry said midfielder Enzo Millot, who had been substituted late on, was shown a red card after the final whistle.
“He wasn’t on the pitch. Maybe you get sent off because you get a second yellow card to stop someone running through on goal, not when you are on the bench. I am really not happy about that,” Henry told broadcaster France 3.
Giuliano Simeone and Julian Alvarez missed chances for Javier Mascherano’s Argentina, and the exit of the two-time gold medallists means the winner of men’s football gold will not come from Latin America for the first time since Cameroon triumphed in Sydney in 2000.
France could have won by a wider margin, but Olise had a late second goal disallowed for a foul in the build-up.
They will now be heavy favourites to win a semi-final in Lyon on Monday against Egypt, who beat Paraguay 5-4 on penalties after a 1-1 draw in Marseille.
Ibrahim Adel was Egypt’s hero, scoring a late equaliser in normal time and then converting the winning penalty in the shoot-out, in which Paraguay’s Marcelo Perez was the only player to fail to score.
Earlier a brilliant brace by Barcelona’s Fermin Lopez helped fire Spain to a 3-0 win over Japan in Lyon.
Lopez, a member of Spain’s triumphant Euro 2024 squad, blasted in the opener from range in the 11th minute.
The Barcelona midfielder struck again on 73 minutes with another goal of the highest quality as he controlled a Sergio Gomez corner before volleying in from the edge of the box.
Captain Abel Ruiz wrapped up the win for Spain, Olympic champions in 1992 and silver medallists three years ago in Tokyo.
Spain go through to a last-four clash in Marseille with Morocco, who outclassed the United States, winning 4-0 in Paris.
Soufiane Rahimi opened the scoring from the penalty spot after he was fouled in the box just before the half-hour mark.
That was a fifth goal in four games for the tournament’s top scorer. Morocco doubled their lead on 63 minutes when Abde Ezzalzouli set up Ilias Akhomach to finish at the near post.
Captain Achraf Hakimi, playing on his Paris Saint-Germain home ground, ran through to make it 3-0 and substitute Mehdi Maouhoub added another penalty in stoppage time.
“If we keep playing like this we will deserve to be in the final,” said Akhomach.
“Other countries might be talked about more than us but we know what we want. We came here to win.”
ATHLETE SUSPENDED AFTER TESTING POSITIVE FOR BANNED STEROID
The judoka Mohammad Samim Faizad, one of only six Afghans at the Paris Olympics, was provisionally suspended on Friday after failing a doping test for a banned steroid.
The 21-year-old, who was beaten 11-0 in the French capital on Tuesday in the men’s -81kg category, had told AFP on the eve of the Games that competing at the Olympics was a dream come true.
The International Testing Agency said: “The ITA reports that a sample collected from judoka Mohammad Samim Faizad from Afghanistan has returned an adverse analytical finding for the non-specified substance stanozolol metabolites.” The sample was collected by the ITA on the day Faizad lost to Austria’s Wachid Borchashvili in his opening bout.
“The athlete has been informed of the case and has been provisionally suspended until the resolution of the matter,” the ITA said, adding the athlete has the right to request analysis of the B-sample.
There are three men and three women from Afghanistan at the Games. Of the six, Olympic debutant Faizad was the only one who trained for the Games inside his Taliban-controlled homeland.
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AWKWARD SCENES AS ‘NEUTRAL’ ACCEPTS GOLD
Ivan Litvinovich from Belarus on Friday became the first athlete competing as a neutral at the Paris Olympics to win gold – but it will not appear in the official medals table.
The 23-year-old retained his title in the men’s trampoline final, with China’s Wang Zisai and Yan Langyu taking silver and bronze.
Athletes from Russia and ally Belarus are competing under a neutral banner after being banned from world sport following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has overseen their gradual return under a neutral banner and under strict conditions.
To be invited to the Games, “neutral individual athletes” who achieved good enough results to qualify had to pass a double check.
International sports federations and the IOC verified that the competitors did not actively support the war in Ukraine or have any links with their countries’ armies.
They were not allowed to take part in the opening ceremony or compete under their national flags.
If athletes make the podium, their achievements are not recognised in the medals table.
Only 15 Russians and 17 Belarusians accepted the invitation to compete under the neutral banner.
Instead of Litvinovich hearing the Belarusian national anthem after receiving his medal, a generic tune with no words commissioned by the IOC was played in its place.
“What is there to say? It’s different. Our anthem is better and I hope we’ll be able to participate in competitions listening it,” he told reporters.
Litvinovich declined to answer when asked about his presence at the Games, particularly in relation to the “support for his country” he had expressed previously.
“I don’t want to answer these questions. You ask these questions to provoke me. I will only answer questions about sport,” he said.
Earlier in the day, Viyaleta Bardzilouskaya from Belarus won the first medal of any kind by a neutral athlete at the Paris Games, taking silver in the women’s trampoline.
Source Agencies
