The United States team was proclaimed Tuesday world champion in women’s artistic gymnastics for the fifth time in a row, by the hand of an infallible Simone Biles that made inaccessible a team that, even without it, It would be superb.
Behind the 172,330 points of the North Americans, the runner-up of the Stuttgart World Cups went to Russia with 166,529 and the third place for Italy, the surprise of the day, with a score of 164,796 and a margin of 566 thousandths over China (164,230).
The United States has won eight of the last nine world titles (China won in 2006), practically always with Chinese and Russian as companions on the podium. The Italians, today commanded by Giorgia Villa, were not in the medals, also with a bronze, since 1950.
With Simone Biles, Grace McCallum and Kara Eaker as surviving gymnasts of the 2018 champion team, and with Sunisa Lee and Jade Carey as novelties, the American team led the final of the first to the last rotation.
Biles, 22, was the only one who came out on all four devices, while her companions alternated in the different exercises.
The granary of points that Biles achieved was capitalized: 15,400 in jump, 14,600 in asymmetric (always his weakest device and the only one in which he did not get the best note of the day), 14,433 in bar and a chilling 15,333 in-ground, the routine with which the competition ended and in which he included his new element, the only one of difficulty J, a deadly double back with three turns.
His notes wiped out serious mistakes from his companions, such as Grace McCallum’s loss of continuity in her asymmetric exercise or Sunisa Lee’s fall from the balance bar. There was the mattress of Biles’s points to keep the team in the lead.
France (163,628), Great Britain (161,495), Canada (160,563) and Holland (159,427) occupied, in that order, the last four positions of the final.
The Stuttgart World Cups will continue on Wednesday with the men’s team final.
