Biles, Raisman, U.S. women hit new heights
Martha Karolyi is walking away happy.
Why shouldn’t she? In Karolyi’s final Olympics as the U.S. national gymnastics team coordinator, the women won a record nine medals, including four golds by Simone Biles. They finished the heavy medal fest with Biles and Aly Raisman going 1-2 on floor, just as they did in the all-around.
“I feel fantastic,” Karolyi said after gymnastics wrapped up Tuesday. “The girls did an excellent job. They again made a statement about the high level of U.S. gymnastics.”
The nine medals top the eight won by the U.S. women in 2008 and 1984. The 12 by the entire U.S. team — Danell Leyva won silver on high bar and parallel bars and Alex Naddour took bronze on pommel horse — are the most since 1984. But those were a boycotted Games. Romania and China were there, but the Soviets — the powerhouse in men’s and women’s gymnastics at the time — were not.
Now, you could say the Rio Games weren’t exactly a fair fight, either. Russia was hampered by injuries, and China has fallen off since its 2008 gold rush in Beijing. Romania is such a mess it didn’t even qualify to send full teams.
But the USA has built such a strong foundation in Karolyi’s 15 years that the Americans’ biggest competition might be back home.
“It’s true to say we could have fielded two teams here and they would have gone first and second,” said Aimee Boorman, Biles’ personal coach and the head coach of the U.S. team in Rio. “The program that’s in place is amazing,”
Or, as Russia’s Aliya Mustafina said, “They are unbeatable at the moment.” Just look at the medal count. The 12 total medals were twice that won by Britain, which had the next-best showing. The nine medals by the women more than doubled those won by Russia, which finished second with four.
With every medal seemed to come a new milestone.
The Final Five’s title was the first time a U.S. team won back-to- back golds. The USA claimed at least one medal on every apparatus for the first time since 1984 and had two in all-around, floor and balance beam. Biles’ gold on vault was a first for an American.
Raisman won her fourth, fifth and sixth Olympic medals, second to Shannon Miller. Biles’ five matched that of Miller, Mary Lou Retton and Nastia Liukin as the most by a U.S. female gymnast in one Games. Her four golds in one Games match the Olympic record.
Gabby Douglas was the only one not to win an individual medal — though she was limited to the uneven bars final because of the twoper-country rule.
That kind of haul would seem to be the program’s high-water mark. Or … not. “As the system has progressed through the years, each team just gets better and better and better,” Boorman said. “And hopefully the team in Tokyo will be even better than this one.”
That, after all, is the point of the U.S. system.
Not only does it create the foundation for success for the current team but also ensures there’s always another waiting in the wings. Sure, it would be nice if Raisman and Biles came back for Tokyo.
But even if they don’t, the Americans will be fine. Laurie Hernandez proved she’s more than capable of carrying the USA through the next quad, and there are juniors itching for their turn.
“It definitely is not a team, but it’s a whole system,” Karolyi said. “We have a whole generation coming after us, so they just need to step on the shoes of these girls and continue on the same direction that we went until now.”
The bar has been set. And it is very high.