The US women's gymnastics team has a wealth of talent. Pretty soon, they’ll have a wealth of medals, too.
Give Simone all the golds.
OK, not uneven bars. But all the rest of them.
USA TODAY Sports – me – picked the U.S. women to win 10 medals at the Tokyo Olympics, which would be a record for the program. And no, that isn’t homerism.
While there are no guarantees in sports, the U.S. women’s gymnastics team is about as close as you can get. The team has won every world and Olympic title dating back to 2011 and, since 2012, no team has gotten within five points of the Americans, an unheard of gap in a sport normally decided by tenths and hundredths of points.
A large part of this is due to Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast the sport has ever seen. She won five medals at the Rio Olympics – golds for team, all-around, vault and floor exercise, and bronze on balance beam – and has only gotten better since then. She’s the reigning world champion in the all-around as well as on vault, floor and beam.
If there’s anywhere she’s vulnerable, it’s beam, where she fell the second night of the Olympic Trials. But don’t expect that to happen again. Instead, I expect Biles to come back with a vengeance and win beam gold.
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The Americans are more than just Biles, however. Suni Lee has a crazy-difficult uneven bars routine, along with a slightly-less crazy-difficult one, and either should make her Olympic champion on the event.
Only two gymnasts per country can qualify for each event final, and the U.S. women are so deep that whoever qualifies along with Biles – Jade Carey or MyKayla Skinner on vault? Lee or Jordan Chiles on beam? Any one of those four or Grace McCallum on floor exercise? – will likely medal.
This isn’t a slight against the Russians, Chinese, French, Dutch and everyone else. It’s just that the U.S. women have a wealth of talent.
Pretty soon, they’ll have a wealth of medals, too.
GYMNASTICS
Men's all-around
Gold: Nikita Nagornyy, ROC
Silver: Daiki Hashimoto, Japan
Bronze: Xiao Ruoteng, China
Men's floor
Gold: Nikita Nagornyy, ROC
Silver: Artem Dolgopyat, Israel
Bronze: Carlos Edriel Yulo, Philippines
Pommel horse
Gold: Max Whitlock, Great Britain
Silver: Kazuma Kaya, Japan
Bronze: Lee Chih Kai, ChineseTaipei
Still rings
Gold: Eleftherios Petrounias, Greece
Silver: Liu Yang, China
Bronze: Marco Lodadio, Italy
Men's vault
Gold: Igor Radivilov, Ukraine
Silver: Nikita Nagornyy, ROC
Bronze: Shin Jeahwan, South Korea
Parallel bars
Gold: Arican Ferhat, Turkey
Silver: David Belyavskiy, ROC
Bronze: Xiao Ruoteng, China
High bar
Gold: Kohei Uchimura, Japan
Silver: Arthur Nory, Brazil
Bronze: Tin Srbic, Croatia
Men's team
Gold: ROC
Silver: Japan
Bronze: China
Women's all-around
Gold: Simone Biles, USA
Silver: Sunisa Lee, USA
Bronze: Viktoria Listunova, ROC
Women's vault
Gold: Simone Biles, USA
Silver: Jade Carey, USA
Bronze: Giulia Steingruber, Switzerland
Uneven bars
Gold: Sunisa Lee, USA
Silver: Nina Derwael, Belgium
Bronze: Fan Yilin, China
Balance beam
Gold: Simone Biles, USA
Silver: Sunisa Lee, USA
Bronze: Melanie De Jesus Dos Santos, France
Women's floor exercise
Gold: Simone Biles, USA
Silver: Angelina Melnikova, ROC
Bronze: Jordan Chiles, USA
Women's team
Gold: USA
Silver: ROC
Bronze: France
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Simone Biles will win Olympic gold: US women's gymnastics to dominate
