PARIS – Simone Biles wasn’t leaving anything to chance in the Olympics vault final, soaring high off the table and delivering her signature, eponymous double backflip in pike position.
It’s called the Biles II, the hardest vault in the world and named after her because she was the first to ever do it in competition. Most won’t even attempt it in practice due to the danger of missing it.
With a degree of difficulty of 6.400, the highest in women’s gymnastics, Biles sometimes calls it her “big guns” that can close out competitions immediately. In this case her execution was nearly flawless (9.4) giving her a massive 15.700 on her first attempt.
At that point, this was all but over. She added a Cheng (5.6 degree of difficulty) on her second attempt that yielded a 14.900.
Her two vault average was 15.300.
That was enough to sweep her way to a 10th Olympic medal and seventh gold by winning the individual vault competition here Saturday. It was her third gold in three attempts here in Paris. She won gold Tuesday in the team event and Thursday in the all-around.
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