Gymnast Simone Biles was originally supposed to defend her gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Biles won gold in the 2016 in the women’s all-around, and if she hadn’t bowed out of the competition due to mental health issues, she might have won again.

With Biles out of the competition, it was 18-year-old Suni Lee’s time to shine, and she took full advantage of the opportunity. The gymnast won gold in the women’s all-around competition with a score just slightly higher than Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade who took home silver. Lee’s total score was 57.44 while Andrade’s score was 57.298. Meanwhile, the Russian Olympic Committee’s Angelina Melnikova placed third.

The competition started with the vault where Lee scored 14.600. Then she moved on to uneven bars and scored 15.300. In both cases, Lee placed higher than she did during qualifications.

The third event was balance beam. She was a little bit shakier on this event but still managed to score 13.833. At this point she was already slightly ahead of Andrade. It would all come down to the final event, the floor exercise. In order to win gold, Andrade would’ve needed a score of 13.802. She came up slightly short with a score of 13.666.

Watch the video below to learn more about how the Olympics are going and if Biles was there to cheer on Lee as she won gold.

 

United States gymnasts have been gold in the women’s all-around in the past five summer Olympic games. In 2004, Carly Patterson won. In 2008 gold went to Nastia Liukin. In 2012, Gabby Douglas won gold. In 2016, gold went to Biles, and this year, obviously Lee won gold.

If Biles had competed in the all-around, do you think she would’ve won gold? Do you think Biles will end up deciding to compete during the Olympics at all?

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