Olympic Women&x27s Gymnastics 2021 Results: Simone Biles, USA at No. 2 in Qualification

Women’s gymnastics at the 2021 Summer Olympics looks like it’ll be a heated competition that could be separated by fractions of points.

Qualifications took place Sunday in Tokyo, and the United States is not the unbeatable juggernaut it appeared to be heading into the event. Neither is Simone Biles—a sentence that’s even more surprising to type out than the previous one.

Here is a look at how all of the qualifiers shook out.

Women’s Gymnastics Qualifiers

Team All-Around

1. ROC (Russia) 171.6292. United States 170.5623. China 166.8634. France 164.5615. Belgium 163.8956. Great Britain 163.3967. Italy 163.3308. Japan 162.662

Individual All-Around

1. Simone Biles (United States) 57.7312. Rebeca Andrade (Brazil) 57.3993. Sunisa Lee (United States) 57.1664. Angelina Melnikova (Russia) 57.1325. Vladislava Urazova (Russia) 57.0996. Nina Derwael (Belgium) 56.5987. Xijing Tang (China) 56.4328. Melanie de Jesus dos Santos (France) 55.431

Balance Beam

1. Chenchen Guan (China) 14.9332. Xijing Tang (China) 14.3333. Sunisa Lee (United States) 14.2004. Larisa Iordache (Romania) 14.1335. Elsabeth Black (Canada) 14.1006. Simone Biles (United States) 14.0667. Vladislava Urazova (Russia) 14.0008. Flavia Saraiva (Brazil) 13.966

Floor Exercise

1. Vanessa Ferrari (Italy) 14.1662. Simone Biles (United States) 14.1333. Jade Carey (United States) 14.1004. Rebeca Andrade (Brazil) 14.0665. Jessica Gadirova (Great Britain) 14.0336. Viktoriia Listunova (Russia) 14.0007. Angelina Melnikova (Russia) 14.0008. Mai Murakami (China) 13.933

Uneven Bars

1. Nina Derwael (Belgium) 15.3662. Sunisa Lee (United States) 15.2003. Anastaiia Iliankova (Russia) 14.9664. Angelina Melnikova (Russia) 14.9335. Yufei Lu (China) 14.7006. Elisabeth Seitz (Germany) 14.7007. Yinlin Fan (China) 14.6008. Simone Biles (United States) 14.566

Women’s Vault

1. Simone Biles (United States) 15.1832. Jade Carey (United States) 15.1663. Rebeca Andrade (Brazil) 15.1004. Seojeong Yeo (South Korea) 14.8005. Shallon Olsen (Canada) 14.6996. Liliia Akhaimova (Russia) 14.6997. Alexa Moreno (Italy) 14.6338. Angelina Melnikova (Russia) 14.616

Recap

The United States may have their work cut out if they hope for a third straight Olympic gold medal.

The U.S. easily qualified for the team portion of the women’s all-around finals but found itself in an unfamiliar position: second place. Russia’s overall score of 171.629 topped the United States’ 170.562.

While those scores do not carry over to the finals, it’s a sign that the rest of the world may be encroaching on the United States’ standing as the world’s top power in women’s gymnastics.

The United States was uncharacteristically sloppy throughout the qualification process, with a number of stars miscuing to take down their scores. Even Simone Biles went off the mat in the floor exercise and on the vault before later misstepping on her dismount in the beam.

“I feel we did a pretty good job. Obviously there are little things we need to work on, so we’ll go back and practice and work on that, just so we can do our best performance at team finals, because that’s what matters,” Biles told reporters.

Biles was still the leader in the individual all-around despite her miscues and remains an overwhelming favorite to earn gold.

Teammate Sunisa Lee is right on Biles’ heels in the all-around, with the 18-year-old positioning herself well for her first Olympic medal. Lee’s excellent 15.200 score in the uneven bars trailed only Belgium’s Nina Derwael, the 2018 and 2019 World Champion in the event.

“This was not the finals. This was getting into the finals. So this might be a great awakening for us and we’ll take advantage of it,” United States high-performance director Tom Forster told reporters.

Brazilian Rebeca Andrade continued her scintillating run from the Pan American Championships to sit second in the all-around. Andrade looks primed to compete with Biles for the overall championship, along with giving her a run for her money in the vault and floor routine. The 22-year-old dominated her subdivision in both of those events.

Russia will carry two medal hopefuls into the all-arounds with Angelina Melnikova and Vladislava Urazova.

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