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Fans in the Bercy Arena will be on the lookout
for Andrade’s unprecedented triple-twisting Yurchenko vault,
which she has yet to debut at the Games. This vault would bring
Andrade’s scoring potential significantly closer to Biles’.
“She's way too close. I've never had an athlete that close, so
it definitely put me on my toes,” Biles told reporters on
Thursday after holding off Andrade in the all-around final to
secure gold.
“I'm getting uncomfortable, guys. I don’t like that feeling. I
was stressing!”
Andrade has already edged Biles in a major competition, when
Biles fell on her Yurchenko double pike in the vault final at
last year’s world championships, losing to Andrade by two-tenths
of a point.
Biles will become the third most-decorated female gymnast with
10 Olympic medals should she vault her way to the medal podium,
as expected.
The male gymnasts will on Saturday contest the floor exercise
and pommel horse, the latter of which could feature the most
exciting battle for gold among all the apparatus finals.
The starting list for the pommel horse is stacked with talent,
as the top three qualifiers share a combined 12 Olympic and
World medals on the apparatus, eight of them gold.
Max Whitlock, who took home gold in the event in Rio and Tokyo,
qualified in third as the 31-year-old was edged in the standings
by Rhys McClenaghan and Stephen Nedoroscik, both 25.
McClenaghan is eyeing Ireland’s first Olympic gymnastics medal
after faltering in the pommel final in Tokyo, and viral U.S.
sensation Nedoroscik will chase his second Games medal after
clinching a U.S. team bronze with his action-packed routine.
Pommel horse is often compared with women’s balance beam since
falls can come easily. Two men that qualified within 0.2 point
of the leader, including Ukraine’s Oleg Verniaiev, could
capitalise on any errors from the top gymnasts.
Britain’s Jake Jarman qualified in first place on the floor
exercise, but China’s Zhang Boheng, who trailed Jarman by half a
point in the preliminaries, will be seeking redemption after
costly errors on the apparatus, including a fall onto his head
during the all-around final that forced him to settle for silver
behind Japan’s Shinnosuke Oka.
(Additional reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber, Chang-Ran
Kim and Rory Carroll; Editing by Alison Williams) [© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
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