American Sunisa Lee won gold in the women’s gymnastics all-around final at the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday as her teammate and defending champion Simone Biles cheered her on from the sidelines.
Lee captured the gold with a strong floor routine in the final rotation, finishing with a total score of 57.433.
Brazil’s Rebecca Andrade won silver with a score of 57.298 while Russian Olympic Committee’s Angelina Melnikova took bronze with 57.199.
Biles, who won four golds in 2016 in Rio, was favored entering the Games but withdrew from the team and all-around events, citing mental health.
Lee started off her day strong as the first to compete on vault, where she had a nearly flawless Yurchenko double twist to earn a 14.6. During the bar rotation, she had a few struggles with her difficult routine but made adjustments to score an impressive 15.300.
Lee held the top spot after three rotations with a score of 43.733. She was among a four-way race atop the leaderboard with Andrade and the ROC’s Melnikova and Vladislava Urazova. All were within half-a-point of each other.
Lee secured her gold-medal finish by scoring 13.700 on her floor routine.
This is a developing story. More coming.
(Photo: Julian Finney / Getty Images)
