By Liz Clarke
The Washington Post
RIO DE JANEIRO — Well before Tuesday’s team final at Rio Olympic Arena, the five members of the U.S. Olympic women’s gymnastics squad huddled via cellphone for an all-important, athletes-only meeting.
The sole agenda item: Come up with a nickname – something that would define them forever — if their dream came true in Rio and they won team gold to take their place alongside the Magnificent Seven of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and the Fierce Five of the 2012 London Games.
They swore they’d keep it a secret, like the best sisters do, until the time was right.
With Simone Biles’s lights-out floor exercise providing the final flourish to a competition in which they hit 12 of 12 routines, that time came Tuesday afternoon — shortly after the scoreboard confirmed they had won the Olympic team gold by a whopping eight-point margin over China and just before they stepped up to the medal stand to receive the gold.
During the joyous hug-fest in between, U.S. national team coordinator Martha Karolyi rushed to the arena floor to tell the young gymnasts how much she loved them.
And they told her their nickname: The Final Five, a tribute to the 73-year-old Karolyi, who’ll retired after these Olympic Games, having pushed, prodded and nurtured this last cohort of starry-eyed, driven young athletes to Olympic gold.
“We told Martha the name, and she started crying,” said Aly Raisman, 22, the two-time Olympian who is also the team’s captain. “It’s very hard to make Martha cry.”
Added Biles, the joyful Texan who soars above all other gymnasts: “She actually started crying! It was so cute. She was so proud of us. And she said, ‘This is why we do so many repetitions in practice.’”
With Biles setting a standard no other gymnasts could match, the Americans staked a lead at the outset of the eight-nation competition and padded it with their technical skill and steadiness at every rotation.
How fitting that the Americans ended the competition on floor exercise, the stage Biles loves best. The same is true for Raisman and 16-year-old Laurie Hernandez, competing in her first Olympics, who preceded her on floor.
With back-to-back-to-back routines of daring tumbling and delightful dance, the U.S. women claimed their third Olympic team gold in the past six Summer Games, finishing with 184.897 points.
Russia, well in arrears, claimed silver (176.688), while China (176.003) took bronze.
The five-woman team, which included 2012 Olympic all-around champion Gabby Douglas and Madison Kocian, who delivered the highest marks on their lone event, uneven bars, melded into a single group hug once Biles’s score was posted, sealing the gold medal.
“I can’t believe what we did tonight,” said Biles, who could leave Rio with five gold medals. “I mean, I can believe it because we’ve been putting in the work, and all of our hard work has finally paid off. Still, I don’t believe it.”
Taking no chances, Biles said she planned to sleep with her gold medal beside her bed, just to make sure it didn’t walk off in the middle of the night.
The Olympic team final is a test of a nation’s breadth and depth of gymnastics talent. From a five-woman squad, each nation picks three gymnasts to compete on the four apparatus. All three scores count, so every fall, stumble or bumble is costly.
The Americans started on vault and didn’t disappoint. Led off by Hernandez, their youngest member, all three earned execution marks of 9.300 or higher. Raisman and Biles did the exceedingly difficult Amanar and were rewarded for terrific delivery.
With it, the American seized the lead after the first of four events.
From there, they moved to the uneven bars-a weakness, to the extent the U.S. has a weakness.
At 4 feet 8, Biles isn’t ideally suited to the uneven bars, but she was solid.
Next up was Douglas, who’s nearly three inches taller, at 21, than she was at the 2012 London Games. She delivered beautifully, getting great extension on a difficult routine. Madison Kocian, a co-world champion, who like Douglas, was named to the team for her expertise on bars, and she set the standard (15.933)
Midway through the competition, the U.S. women held a four-point-plus lead over China, with Russia close behind.
From there, they moved to the balance beam-a 4-inch wide test of nerves that can trip up even the best prepared gymnast. All three Americans wobbled and swayed at one point, but all three quickly reclaimed their poise to stay on and finish strong. Once again, their scores ascended, as anticipated by the starting order Karolyi scripted, with Biles supplying the high mark of 15.300.
Hernandez, though scored a slight fraction of a point lower (15.233), was a special delight to watch – so stylish in her movement, so committed to each tumbling pass and pose.
Their lead now nearly five points, the U.S. women finished with the floor exercise. Hernandez went first. The crowd loved her music; they loved her, as she pranced and danced about with the frivolity of a child showing off in the backyard, peppering the routine with impressive tumbling.
Raisman, the reigning Olympic floor champion, followed with a more classic routine, delivered with a veteran’s command, her strongest tumbling pass coming last. She earned a modest 15.366.
Biles brought the arena to life with the samba flavor of a routine she so clearly loves. Her tumbling drew audible gasps and squeals, as her compact body flipped through the air, weightless as a feather. Each landing was sure-footed; each swivel and pose accompanied by a brilliant smile. Her final tumbling pass ends with her bouncing up from a split-second’s plop on the mat.
The crowd was still cheering as Biles bounded off the mat and disappeared into the outstretched arms of her teammates, gold medalists all.
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