LONDON (GBR), FIG Office, August 2, 2012: The girl they call the Flying Squirrel leapt into the history books at the North Greenwich Arena on Thursday as USA’s Gabby Douglas rose to the occasion to clinch Gold in the Women’s Artistic Gymnastics All-around.
The 16-year-old topped the ranking with a score of 62.232 after a display of Gymnastics that lit up the arena and consigned Russia’s Victoria Komova, the first-placed qualifier, to the Silver medal. “It just feels amazing to be called Olympic Champion,” a beaming Douglas said afterwards. “So much effort, hard work, determination and passion in the gym [went into it]."
Douglas was the highest scorer on two of her first three apparatuses – registering 15.966 on Vault on the first rotation and 15.500 on Beam on the third to ensure she entered the final rotation in the lead. Her performance on Beam contrasted markedly with her problems on that apparatus at the last two US national championships – and underlined this was a gymnast who had found the perfect moment in time to discover the very best of her talent.
“The pressure is not for us to do bad things – it should make us do better and greater things,” she said. “It definitely pumps you up and hypes you up. The pressure definitely helped me."
This was no more evident than on Floor where her exuberant, athletic routine scored 15.033 to keep her clear of Komova, who finished with 61.973 points. “You have to learn to enjoy and seize the moment," added Douglas, who went on to pay credit to her coach Liang Chow. “Chow pushed me in the gym so the Olympics would be easy and I'd cruise through. I was just cruising and I'm on cloud nine.”
Douglas’s triumph ensured a third straight US All-around Gold for the third time – matching the Soviet Union’s hat-trick of 1952-60. Komova was still in with a shout of overtaking the American as the last gymnast to go on Floor but it was not to be. However, she remained impressively gracious in defeat, hailing Douglas as a worthy champion. “She is a very strong athlete, she performed beautifully today and I believe she earned her Gold medal – she was very good tonight and performed very well for the last few days.”
“I am proud about what I’ve done today although I am a bit disappointed because I wanted to win the Gold,” added Komova, who was also runner-up in the 2011 World Championships. “I think I did well, the Vault [on which she scored 15.466] was not very successful but overall I did well.”
There was a second Russian on the podium after Aliya Mustafina took the Bronze medal, edging past USA’s Aly Raisman on a tie-break after the pair had finished level on 59.566 points. According to new tie-breaking rules introduced for these Games, each gymnast’s lowest score was taken away, leaving Mustafina with 45.933 and Raisman with 45.366.
That spelled relief for the Russian, whose excellent work on the Uneven bars (16.100) appeared to have been undone by a fall on Beam. “I performed well apart from the beam [but] I was not totally confident that I would get a medal, even a Bronze – any fall is very bad and it is very difficult to finish in the top three after a fall like that,” she admitted.
As for the unlucky Raisman, she came so close to a medal thanks to her opening Vault routine (15.900) and a closing effort on Floor which yielded 15.133 but should have earned greater reward according to her coach Mihai Brestyan. “This was a better routine than in the Team competition where she got a 15.3,” he said.
“It is what it is,” said Raisman. “I feel sad because I was so close to getting a medal but I’m still fourth in the world so I’m really proud about that.” Raisman had ousted team-mate and World Champion Jordyn Wieber when qualifying in second place for this final but there was to be no fairy-tale finish; that belonged to another American.
Results
