Aspire
Team USA cruised to a fourth successive world title at the 48th Artistic Gymnastics World Championship in Doha tabling a huge 171.629. Leaving a gap of 8.766 between themselves and the Russian Federation in Silver and People’s Republic of China in third, the USA Women’s win continues their World and Olympic reign, having won every title since 2011.
In her first competition since the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, Simone Biles led a strong US team, picking up her 11th world title at age 21. The US team of Biles, Grace McCallum, Morgan Hurd, Riley McCusker and Kara Eaker collected 171.629 points, nine ahead of silver-medallist Russian Federation (162.863) with People’s Republic of China third (162.396).
Simone Biles back in the squad certainly helped, after taking a year off in 2017 following her triumphant showing at the Rio 2016 Olympics Games. Even with a kidney stone she’s nicknamed ‘The Doha Pearl’, she achieved the highest scores on uneven bars, vault and floor in the final, with her team mate Kara Eaker taking the honours on beam. Team USA made mistakes on floor and beam (Biles and Hurd), but still took Gold by some margin.
On her and her team’s performance, Simone Biles said: “Mistakes happen. We go back into training and hopefully work on the little mistakes that we have made, but overall (it was) pretty good. I felt really good. It’s exciting to be out there, especially with the group of girls we had tonight. It felt unreal. I can’t believe it’s World Championships and we’re competing again.”
On keeping herself and her team-mates in a highly competitive mood, knowing they were heavily favoured to win: “It’s just instilled in us. We’re used to it, but we also know the expectations that we have on ourselves whenever we go out there, so I think that’s what keeps us going.”
Russian Federation and People’s Republic of China put in strong performances, but their scores could not challenge the USA who led from the first rotation and showed no signs of letting go. Russian Federation and People’s Republic of China battled for Silver and Bronze, while looking over their shoulders for Canada and France. The Canadian’s rewrote their history books with a record fourth place finish.
Overall standings were as follows:
1 United States of America 171.629
2 Russian Federation 162.863
3 People’s Republic of China 162.396
4 Canada 161.644
5 France 161.294
6 Japan 160.262
7 Brazil 159.830
8 Germany 159.428
Over the remaining four days, the worlds best will compete in a series of individual finals to decide who will be crowned 2018 World Champions. Finals for Men’s & Women’s All-Arounders and Men’s & Women’s Apparatus are still to be held under Aspire Dome.
Tickets are still available for the finals - an unmissable event on Qatar and the world’s sporting calendar at worldgymdoha18.com. To learn more please follow @DohaGym2018 across social media.