The Gopher women’s gymnastics season is off to a strong start, with two major upsets against No. 6 Arkansas and No. 10 Michigan. Now, the Gophers are climbing in the national rankings.
A standout in both meets was junior and Stillwater native Jordyn Lyden. She led the Gophers on bars against Michigan, earning a season best score of 9.925.
“Beating those teams was really good for our confidence, just knowing that we could go out there and do that, and I think it was really big, especially at home, it’s always exciting to start off with some big wins,” Lyden said.
Head coach Jenny Hansen is in her 12th season at the helm of this team. She credits Lyden for being one of her most consistent gymnasts to rely on.
“I think she’s really setting a standard for our team and really elevating everybody along with her,” Hansen said. “She really works to get every single half tenth, tenth out there. She wants to be scoring 9.9-plus on every event.”
In practice, the Gophers are focused heavily on conditioning, knowing how much the little things contribute in a big way.
“I think all those things matter and add up too when you’re competing,” Lyden said.
A standout alum of the program is new to their coach staff this year. Mya Hooten returned to the team after graduating as the beam coach. The two-time individual national qualifier is a huge addition to the team’s arsenal this season as Hooten helps her former teammates find success.
“She’s just always positive and brings the energy and just really believes in you,” Lyden said.
Their next home meet is against Iowa this Saturday, then top-ranked UCLA and Olympian Jordan Chiles on Feb. 7.
Diagnosed with cystic fibrosis at birth, Haley says meeting Simone Biles gave her hope and inspiration to pursue her ultimate goal: competing in the Olympics and inspiring others.
Haley Gibson of Frederick, Maryland, met her gymnastics hero, Simone Biles, through Make-A-Wish. (Courtesy Gibson family)
Throughout December, WTOP is bringing you “Wish Wednesday,” where we spotlight what Make-A-Wish Mid-Atlantic does for families in D.C., Virginia and Maryland. If you would like to help make a wish kid’s dream come true, please visit the foundation’s website.
Have you ever heard the old saying about never meeting your hero? A lot of people believe they will let you down.
Someone who disagrees with that statement is an 11-year-old gymnast from Frederick, Maryland.
During a Make-A-Wish visit at WTOP, Haley Gibson explained why meeting her hero, Simone Biles, caused her to flip out.
“She did the opposite of disappointing me. She lightened me. She helped me through the struggles I was going through, and just made me feel so much better,” Haley said. “She was really sweet. She listened, she gave good answers. She was patient.”
Haley, who started in gymnastics at the age of two, said Biles has always been her idol.
“So when I got to meet her, I just happened to be going to a camp,” Haley said. “It was even more special.”
Sitting and watching Haley be interviewed about that special day was her biggest fan and mom, Lisa Gibson.
Along with Haley, her mother, father and her two sisters also met Biles.
“She was so down to earth and so nice. I mean, you wouldn’t have even known that she was this big celebrity,” Lisa said. “You have been such an inspiration to her and to our family.”
The meeting will be something Haley will never forget.
“It was just so exciting, because I think my brain was just like, ‘Oh, my God, she’s really here,’” Haley said.
Shortly after Haley was born, she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, as was one of her sisters.
“Cystic fibrosis is a lung disease that can affect the breathing,” Haley said. “So you have to do treatments and take lots of medicine, and it’s very hard and sometimes scary.”
Lisa said seeing the light in Haley’s eyes as her daughter and Biles spoke brought her the joy she needed.
“She’s been through so much being a military family, you move a lot. Then you add on CF, and you just add on being in middle school — all these things, and she just takes it like a champ,” Haley’s mother said.
As soon as Haley returned from her Wish, she asked her mom how she could help Make-A-Wish, since they had helped her.
What will the future hold in store for the sixth grader?
Don’t worry, she already has it planned out.
“Go to the Olympics and be an inspiration for other people,” Haley said.
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LSU athletic director Scott Woodward resigned under pressure from the post he’s held for six years on Thursday night, four days after the firing of football coach Brian Kelly and a day after Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said Woodward would not hire Kelly’s replacement.
Woodward, a Baton Rouge native and LSU graduate, was hired as athletic director at his alma mater in April 2019. Since then, LSU has won national championships in football, baseball (twice), women’s basketball and gymnastics.
“We thank Scott for the last six years of service as athletic director,” LSU Board of Supervisors chairman Scott Ballard said. “He had a lot of success at LSU.
“Our focus now is on moving the athletic department forward and best positioning LSU to achieve its full potential.”
Among the coaches hired by Woodward was Kim Mulkey, who led LSU to its first women’s basketball national title in 2023. Her team played an exhibition game on Thursday night, and Mulkey declined to attend a postgame news conference, sending assistant Bob Starkey instead.
“In 40 years of coaching, I’ve worked with two phenomenal athletic directors,” Starkey added. “One was Skip Bertman (at LSU). The other one was Scott Woodward.”
Verge Ausberry, LSU’s executive deputy athletic director, will replace Woodward on an interim basis and lead the search for a football coach, the university announced.
In an open letter to LSU fans, Woodward said, “Our University will always hold a special place in my heart and I will never be too far from LSU.”
“Others can recap or opine on my tenure and on my decisions over the last six years as Director of Athletics, but I will not,” Woodward said. “Rather, I will focus on the absolute joy that LSU Athletics brings to our state’s residents and to the Baton Rouge community.”
When Woodward was hired in 2019, James Carville, a political pundit who graduated from LSU, taught there and was named to the university’s Manship School of Mass Communications’ Hall of Fame, hosted a welcome party for him at his house in New Orleans.
In a phone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday night, Carville, a Democrat, expressed disgust at the circumstances surrounding Woodward’s sudden departure.
“The Louisiana governor and the LSU board has damaged the reputation of our university,” Carville said. “Landry’s IQ is the equivalent of the temperature of dishwater.
“The LSU board is weak and pathetic,” Carville added. “This is not about my politics. It’s about my university.”
According to Woodward’s contract, he is owed more than $5 million through 2029. LSU has not yet announced the financial terms of his separation agreement.
Under Woodward, the football program bought out former coach Ed Orgeron for about $17 million in 2021. The buyout for Kelly, whom Woodward signed to a 10-year contract worth about $100 million in December 2021, is about $53 million, which is among the largest in the history of college sports.
Texas A&M’s $77 million buyout of former coach Jimbo Fisher, who was fired in 2023, is the largest.
Woodward was Texas A&M’s athletic director when Fisher was hired to coach the Aggies in December 2017. But Woodward already had been at LSU for two years when A&M, in 2021, gave Fisher a contract extension that effectively doubled the cost of his buyout.
Still, Landry assigned blame for Fisher’s buyout to Woodward.
“This is a pattern,” Landry said. “Right now, we’ve got a $53 million liability. … We are not doing that again.”
Kelly went 34-14 at LSU, never reaching the College Football Playoff, which was expanded from four to 12 teams in 2024.
LSU does not currently have a president. Its most recent president, William F. Tate IV, left to become president of Rutgers in July. The next president will be hired by the Board of Supervisors, whose members are appointed by the governor to six-year staggered terms.
Since Landry took office in January 2024, he has appointed nine of the 18 board members, and will have the chance to appoint four more in 2026.
The board has announced that it expects to select the next president on Tuesday.
LSU athletic director Scott Woodward resigned under pressure from the post he’s held for six years on Thursday night, four days after the firing of football coach Brian Kelly and a day after Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said Woodward would not hire Kelly’s replacement.
Woodward, a Baton Rouge native and LSU graduate, was hired as athletic director at his alma mater in April 2019. Since then, LSU has won national championships in football, baseball (twice), women’s basketball and gymnastics.
“We thank Scott for the last six years of service as athletic director,” LSU Board of Supervisors chairman Scott Ballard said. “He had a lot of success at LSU.
“Our focus now is on moving the athletic department forward and best positioning LSU to achieve its full potential.”
Verge Ausberry, LSU’s executive deputy athletic director, will replace Woodward on an interim basis and lead the search for a football coach, the university announced.
In an open letter to LSU fans, Woodward said, “Our University will always hold a special place in my heart and I will never be too far from LSU.”
“Others can recap or opine on my tenure and on my decisions over the last six years as Director of Athletics, but I will not,” Woodward said. “Rather, I will focus on the absolute joy that LSU Athletics brings to our state’s residents and to the Baton Rouge community.”
When Woodward was hired in 2019, James Carville, a political pundit who graduated from LSU, taught there and was named to the university’s Manship School of Mass Communication’s Hall of Fame, hosted a welcome party for him at his house in New Orleans.
In a phone interview with The Associated Press on Thursday night, Carville, a Democrat, expressed disgust at the circumstances surrounding Woodward’s sudden departure.
“The Louisiana governor and the LSU board has damaged the reputation of our university,” Carville said. “Landry’s IQ is the equivalent of the temperature of dishwater.
“The LSU board is weak and pathetic,” Carville added. “This is not about my politics. It’s about my university.”
Landry on Wednesday was hosting a news conference about government matters not concerning LSU when he was asked about the LSU coaching situation and asserted that Woodward would not be involved in the selection of the next coach.
Under Woodward, the football program bought out former coach Ed Orgeron for about $17 million in 2021, and it now must pay Kelly’s buyout of about $53 million, which is among the largest in the history of college sports.
Texas A&M’s $77 million buyout of former coach Jimbo Fisher, who was fired in 2023, is the largest.
Woodward was Texas A&M’s athletic director when Fisher was hired to coach the Aggies in December 2017. But Woodward already had been at LSU for two years when A&M, in 2021, gave Fisher a contract extension that effectively doubled the cost of his buyout.
Still, Landry assigned blame for Fisher’s buyout to Woodward.
“This is a pattern,” Landry said. “Right now, we’ve got a $53 million liability. … We are not doing that again.”
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
James Jones fell in love with the art of gymnastics while watching the sport on TV. In his hometown of Columbus, Georgia, he often watched the boys in his neighborhood use concrete and grass as springboards, flipping and flying along the pavements. But the idea of competing wasn’t something he’d imagined for himself. Because no gym existed in his community, his dreams of flying were confined to screens and the books he’d check out in the library.
It wasn’t until his elementary school assistant principal saw his talent on the playground that his dreams led to him earning a gymnastics scholarship at a gym across town. When he requested an extension to that scholarship, Jones discovered that the assistant principal had been paying his tuition the whole time.
That act of kindness, faith, and nurturing of his abilities stayed with Jones. He vowed to pay it forward for younger boys who looked like him.
“It stuck with me because I told everybody that I wanted to do gymnastics. They knew I had this great love for it, but nobody in my community actually ever tried to put me in gymnastics; it was this lady who wasn’t in the community who did so. And so when I got older, I didn’t want the kids in my community to have to look to someone outside of the community for assistance,” Jones said. “When I realized there wasn’t a competitive boys gymnastics program in our area, I decided to go ahead and start one, because I knew there was a need, and I knew that the boys would need to see someone who looked like them and who could relate to them spearheading it.”
Photo by Tabius McCoy/The Atlanta Voice
Now, Jones is helping other kids fly and is the coach and founder of the James Jones Gymnastics Academy, home to the only all-Black boys’ competitive gymnastics team in the United States.
However, that home is now in jeopardy. In July, news broke online that the gym was in danger of closing down after zoning laws wouldn’t allow the team to relocate to a new building after outgrowing their old one. Jones had until Aug. 1 to resolve the situation, which he was unable to do due to rejection after rejection, forcing the gym to close down. Now, Jones and his students are looking for a new home suitable for gymnastics, but he shared that all of the zoning verification applications for every building they’ve looked at so far have been denied. When he looked at warehouse-type buildings needed for a gym in the commercial districts of Clayton County, the amount to lease the buildings increased to three to four times the rent.
“It got to the point where I had submitted so many applications and they were denied, even though other people were operating similar or general commercial buildings in the area. And that’s what led to my frustration. I believe I was probably eight denials in, and I was like, OK, something crazy is going on. I applied for a couple of more spaces, and they were denied. And I’m so confused.”
However, that denial from the county led to the news going viral, resulting in widespread attention, a GoFundMe that has now raised over $50,000, and support from people across the U.S., including celebrities and other gymnasts. People have reached out to him with contacts for securing a new location and offers to house the boys in temporary spaces until they find a new home. One coach confided in Jones that he’d gone through a similar situation with zoning and ended up having to build his own gym.
For Jones, the community’s support has shown him just how much gymnastics is valued in the Black community and further revealed why that value is limited.
“I think that the community loves to see go-getters, and the boys are go-getters for one. I’m going to tell you the truth — Black people love gymnastics. I don’t care what anybody says. But for some reason, it doesn’t translate to Black kids being in gymnastics. And I think with our situation, you can kind of see why: the cost, the access, the location. But I feel like the community has spoken. They would love to see programs like this in our community that are sustainable.
But the dream is still alive, and Jones doesn’t plan on letting it die.
The seeds of James Jones Gymnastics Academy began to grow when Jones became a volunteer gymnastics coach for a recreation center in 2019. After six months on the job, he noted that many of the boys wanted to further their athletic careers in gymnastics by competing; however, opportunity was limited at the particular rec center; they only let the girls compete. When the city rejected his request to start another gymnastics program for the boys, he ventured out on his own. A lawyer by trade, he began coaching gymnastics in the lobby of his law office, which he humorously admitted wasn’t the best solution. After a few days on a hot summer playground and 16 months in a building suggested by someone he knew, they soon moved into their own building in Clayton County.
For six years, the gymnastics academy has been a safe space for young Black boys to nurture their talents in a sport and world that doesn’t often celebrate and recognize them. Jones has witnessed how gymnastics has transformed the boys, developing their skills and personalities and giving them the opportunity to see parts of the world at a young age as they travel to competitions across the country.
The team, named the Skywalkers, has won first place in the Judges Cup, the entry competition for each season. One of his students made the future stars team for their region, the precursor for boys training for the U.S. Olympic team. He also had several boys who were in the National Gymnastics Association’s training program, and four of them were invited to the national training camp for the summer.
Jones is a Georgia state representative for the National Gymnastics Association, and one of his goals is to use that organization to grow men’s gymnastics. As the Skywalkers make their mark with their footprints, they’re also breaking glass ceilings.
“To have boys in our community who are kind of at the forefront of not only pioneering Black gymnastics, but assisting in saving men’s gymnastics is great. When we’re looking for videos or looking at examples, I remember one boy said, ‘Well, why don’t you ever show us any examples of Black boys doing gymnastics?’ And I say, ‘You are the Black boys doing gymnastics.
“So I don’t think that at their age right now, they understand that they’re part of history, that they have ushered in this movement of black boys and gymnastics. Now, I’m not saying that they’re the first Black boys that have ever done gymnastics, but this is the first time that the United States has seen, in one centralized location, an all- Black competitive boys gymnastics team in a community that’s pushing and supporting it. And I think that that’s wonderful. I think that there are other movements that can come from this in other sports where Black kids may not be at the forefront, or they may not be the premier athletes in that sport.”
James Jones Gymnastics Academy is a small program compared to others, which means Jones pulls together and exhausts all the resources he can for the up to 60 kids he teaches a period. Tuition for the program is income-based, and those who can’t afford the tuition train for free.
He and his students have had to make do, relying on donations and fundraisers and building needed equipment out of existing things in the gym. Jones shared that the resi-pit — a safety mat and padding system — they used was taken from another gym after they threw it out and gave it to him after request; he took a box cutter, sawed the $5,000 it into tiny pieces, stuffed it into his sedan, and drove it from Roswell to Jonesboro.
“That just lets you know the type of things that we’ve had to do over the last six years to ensure that we have the equipment that we need.”
Currently, Jones is taking his time in selecting a new location because when they return, he wants to come back bigger. Jones said the enthusiasm for the return of the program can be seen by the number of people who have signed up for preregistration even though there isn’t a physical location yet.
“Last time, I started a small program, and we didn’t have anything that we needed when we started. This time, when I restart, I want it to be a program that can welcome all levels of gymnastics from our community. That’s the beginners, that’s the recreation, that’s girls, that’s boys, even if adults want to come and take an adult class. And I want to take my time and select a location that would be suitable for all of that.”
By Stacy Brown Black Press USA Senior National Correspondent
As Trump Attempts to Minimize Slavery, Book Details the Consequences of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
New York, NY—Civil Rights icon and National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) President and CEO Dr. Benjamin F. Chavis Jr. and renowned journalist and NNPA Senior National Correspondent Stacy M. Brown collaborated on the groundbreaking book The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Overcoming the 500-Year Legacy, which is now available from Select Books (ISBN 978-1-59079-569-9). Released on October 8, 2024, this work explores the brutal legacy of the transatlantic slave trade and its ongoing impact on African people throughout the world.
This searing book offers an unflinching account of the 500-year legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, beginning in 1500 with the abduction of millions of Africans and following the historical arc through centuries of oppression, Jim Crow-era terror, and modern systemic racism. The book is an unapologetic examination of how the horrors of the past—rooted in slavery—continue to manifest in present-day America through police brutality, mass incarceration, economic disparities, and educational inequality.
Chavis, a central figure in the civil rights movement, draws on his decades of activism and personal experiences in the fight for equal justice. As a young activist with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Dr. Chavis worked under Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and later became a prominent leader within the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA). His wrongful imprisonment as the leader of the Wilmington Ten in 1971—a group of political prisoners falsely convicted and imprisoned for untruthful allegations of arson during the civil rights movement in North Carolina—serves as a vivid reminder of the institutionalization of racial discrimination in America that continues to suppress the human rights of communities of color.
“This book does not simply chronicle history; it challenges readers to face the lasting consequences of the transatlantic slave trade,” says Dr. Chavis. “The blood, sweat, and tears of enslaved Africans laid the very foundation for the American experiment in democracy, yet their descendants are still fighting for equality and justice in every facet of American life.”
Isiah Thomas, a legend in the NBA, highlights the importance of this work in his stirring words, which support Dr. Chavis’s call to action:
“Dr. Ben Chavis must continue to fight and tell this story, not just for our generation, but for future generations who must understand the truth about our history if they are to finish righting the wrongs that began over 400 years ago,” Thomas emphasizes that this book is a vital tool in paving the way for future generations, ensuring that they are armed with the unvarnished truth.
Arikana Chihombori-Quao, African Union Ambassador to the United States, underscores the importance of the book’s message:
“Dr. Chavis connects the dots from the slave ports of West Africa to the present-day struggles of Black Americans. The transatlantic slave trade was not just a historical event—it laid the groundwork for centuries of racial oppression. The fight against that legacy is still ongoing.”
The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Overcoming the 500-Year Legacy digs deep into the trauma of the Middle Passage, where millions of Africans were stripped of their dignity, crammed into ships like cargo, and forced into lives of unimaginable brutality. Yet, as Chavis and Brown remind us, the legacy of slavery is not confined to the past. The authors draw powerful connections between historical atrocities and modern-day issues such as redlining, environmental racism, economic injustice, and mass incarceration.
The book pulls no punches in confronting America’s hypocrisy: while African slaves built the economic foundation of the nation, their descendants are still treated as second-class citizens. From the auction blocks of the 1700s to the prison industrial complex of the 21st century, The Transatlantic Slave Trade unveils the continued systemic structures designed to oppress Black communities.
As legendary hip-hop icon, Chuck D of Public Enemy passionately states in the foreword, “The chains of slavery may have been broken, but the shackles of systemic racism are still very much intact. If you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” His call to action resonates throughout the book, echoing the urgent need to confront this history and dismantle the systems of oppression that have evolved from it.
Public Enemy’s track “Can’t Truss It” is a thematic thread in the book, with its unfiltered depiction of the slave trade’s legacy. The song’s haunting lyrics—“Ninety damn days on a slave ship / Count ’em fallin’ off two, three, four hun’ed at a time”—capture the rage and pain of an entire people. This visceral connection to history is what makes The Transatlantic Slave Trade a powerful rallying cry for justice and equity.
Brown, an award-winning journalist and Senior National Correspondent for the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA), brings his keen insight into this exploration of history. Brown has relentlessly advocated for justice and equity, using his platform to shed light on systemic injustices nationwide.
In The Transatlantic Slave Trade, Chavis and Brown challenge readers to reckon with the uncomfortable truths of America’s past—and to acknowledge how those truths continue to shape the realities of today. The authors highlight how the scars of slavery persist in police violence, economic disparity, and the underfunding of Black communities. They demand we face this history head-on without sugarcoating or sanitizing the truth.
This book is a must-read for anyone seeking to understand the historical roots of modern-day racism and the enduring fight for equal justice. As Public Enemy famously said, “Fight the Power.”The Transatlantic Slave Trade is a potent weapon in the ongoing battle for racial equity and justice, reminding us that the struggle continues—and so must our resistance.
The Transatlantic Slave Trade: Overcoming the 500-Year Legacy will be available at major book retailers and online platforms beginning October 8, 2024.
About the Authors
Dr. Benjamin Chavis is a civil rights leader, author, and former Executive Director and CEO of the NAACP. Known for his relentless fight against oppression and his leadership in environmental justice and economic empowerment, Dr. Chavis is a lifelong warrior for social justice. Currently, Chavis is the President and CEO of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA).
Stacy M. Brown is the Senior National Correspondent for the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) and an acclaimed journalist renowned for his in-depth reporting on racial and social justice issues.
For review copies or to schedule an interview with the authors, please contact: Kenichi Sugihara, Select Books, http://www.kenichi@selectbooks.com.
IOWA CITY, Iowa — Recalling the damage her now-arrested coach inflicted on her and many of her gymnast friends, Finley Weldon said she feels a sense of pride.
Free from the grip that Sean Gardner had during her years of training at an Iowa academy known for producing Olympians, Weldon told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview that she is among the few who survived his abuse and are still in the sport.
The 18-year-old is heading into her freshman year at Iowa State University, where she’ll be a member of the Cyclones gymnastics team. She spoke with the AP on Wednesday, less than a week after Gardner was arrested on a child sexual exploitation charge.
“I didn’t want him to take away anything from me, especially something that I love,” she said. “None of the girls that I started with or went through the things that I did with Sean are still doing gymnastics today. So that’s something I’m very proud of.”
She’s also happy she’s made a difference, in the same way gymnasts she admires — like Aly Raisman, an Olympian whose visceral accounts of abuse by Larry Nassar shined a spotlight on the trauma gymnasts went through and how authorities failed to curb it.
The AP generally does not identify victims of sexual abuse, but Weldon said she wanted “my name out there because I was the one who did come forward.”
“I felt like I needed to speak out to stop it from happening to other little girls, so they didn’t have to go through what I went through,” Weldon said.
“I knew it would just be a continuous cycle if nobody did.”
The FBI said Tuesday it believes Gardner “targeted children” while coaching at Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, and gyms in Mississippi and Louisiana where he worked dating back to 2004.
Gardner, 38, didn’t return AP messages left on his cellphone before his arrest, and has not entered a plea to the charge. A public defender who represented him after his arrest hasn’t returned messages.
Another former gymnast at Chow’s, the academy known for producing Olympic gold medalists Shawn Johnson and Gabby Douglas, first reported sexual abuse allegations against Gardner to the U.S. Center for SafeSport in March 2022, alleging he fondled her during training sessions, according to an FBI affidavit.
That girl provided the names of six other of Gardner’s potential victims, according to the affidavit. Weldon said she spoke with a SafeSport investigator about her abuse at the time.
SafeSport, a watchdog created after the Nassar scandal to investigate misconduct complaints, informed the West Des Moines Police Department about the allegations. It suspended Gardner from coaching or having contact with any gymnasts in July 2022.
The police department said its investigation was closed in 2022 when the initial accuser decided she did not want to pursue charges.
Weldon said police never reached out to her in 2022 but she’s unsure whether she would have wanted to press charges then. She said she came forward in April 2024 at age 16 after she matured and began to realize the severity of her abuse.
She praised police for doing “an amazing job” keeping her informed about the progress of the case.
“It’s definitely taken awhile, but I mean, even I didn’t realize how many steps there would be to charge him with anything,” she said.
Iowa investigators say they searched Gardner’s home in May and seized electronic devices that contained images of nude girls from a hidden camera Gardner placed in the bathroom of a Purvis, Mississippi, gym where he previously worked.
West Des Moines Police Sgt. Daniel Wade said Wednesday the department sought the FBI’s assistance in mid-July when the case’s “scope started to broaden.” Asked why the department didn’t involve FBI sooner, he said, “We call the FBI when the time is right.”
Gardner is charged in federal court in Mississippi with producing visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct related to the alleged hidden camera. Federal and state investigations remain active, and additional charges are possible.
Wade defended the department’s investigative efforts over the last three years. He said investigators “went as far with it as we could” in 2022, without a victim seeking charges and have been conducting a thorough investigation since receiving the new complaint in 2024.
Wade declined comment on whether investigators reached out to Weldon and other potential victims identified in 2022, saying only that police opened “lines of communication with different people” that later paid off.
Weldon said she met with investigators Tuesday and they asked her to identify herself in an image Gardner allegedly secretly took of her in a vulnerable stretching position.
Weldon said her goal since she was a girl was to reach the elite level in the USA Gymnastics Junior Olympic program for those who aim to compete internationally.
She said she started training at Chow’s after her family moved to Iowa in 2015. She began taking private lessons with Gardner two or three times per week shortly after he joined Chow’s in September 2018, when she 11 years old.
Weldon said she was struggling as her parents went through a divorce and her father was largely absent from her life. She said Gardner sought to fill that role by telling her she could tell him “anything” and that he would always be there for her.
In hindsight, she said he was manipulating her in order to gain her trust.
Finley’s mother, Julie Weldon, said she heard concerns about Gardner from other parents at Chow’s early on and asked her daughter whether her coach had ever done anything inappropriate. Finley said she falsely told her mother no because she was protecting the “male figure in my life.”
She said Gardner began touching her inappropriately in 2019 during lessons, beginning with long hugs and pats on the back. She said his behavior progressed, and he began touching her butt during the hugs and requiring her to stretch for extended periods in positions that exposed her vagina and anus out of her leotard.
She said around 2020 he began touching her vagina while spotting her during exercises. She recalled once telling him not to put his hands there and he claimed it was an accident because her “leotard was slippery.”
Weldon recalled reaching her breaking point with Gardner after a 2021 training in which he yelled and threw shoes at her, telling her she’d never reach elite status. She said she walked out and told her mom she wanted to quit.
She said many of her classmates quit or didn’t return because of Gardner’s conduct after the gym shut down during the pandemic. But while he made her hate gymnastics at times, she continued training when her family moved to Texas and then to Utah. She said she eventually proved Gardner wrong by earning elite status and a spot on a Division 1 team.
After news of Gardner’s arrest, Weldon saw his jail booking photo in the AP story. She said she was struck by how much heavier and unkempt he appeared.
“He’s definitely like gone through a spiral,” she said. “I think he probably just had so much guilt built up in him that he kind of turned into that.”
The U.S. gymnastics world was only just recovering from a devastating sexual abuse scandal when a promising young coach moved from Mississippi to Iowa to take a job in 2018 at an elite academy known for training Olympic champions.
Liang “Chow” Qiao, the owner of Chow’s Gymnastics and Dance Institute in West Des Moines, thought highly enough of his new hire, Sean Gardner, to put him in charge of the club’s premier junior event and to coach some of its most promising girls.
But four years later, Gardner was gone from Chow’s with little notice.
USA Gymnastics, the organization rocked by the Larry Nassar sex-abuse crisis that led to the creation of the U.S. Center for SafeSport, had been informed by the watchdog group that Gardner was suspended from all contact with gymnasts.
The reason for Gardner’s removal wasn’t disclosed. But court records obtained exclusively by The Associated Press show the coach was accused of sexually abusing at least three young gymnasts at Chow’s and secretly recording others undressing in a gym bathroom at his prior job in Mississippi.
Last week, more than three years after being suspended from coaching, the FBI arrested Gardner, 38, on a federal child pornography charge. But his disciplinary case has still not been resolved by SafeSport, which handles sex-abuse cases in Olympic sports.
In cases like Gardner’s, the public can be in the dark for years while SafeSport investigates and sanctions coaches. SafeSport requires that allegations be reported to police to ensure abusers don’t run unchecked outside of sports, but critics say the system is a slow, murky process.
“From an outward operational view, it seems that if SafeSport is involved in any way, the situation turns glow-in-the-dark toxic,” said attorney Steve Silvey, a longtime SafeSport critic who has represented people in cases involving the center.
The Chow’s Gymnastics & Dance Institute is seen Aug. 4, 2025, in West Des Moines, Iowa.
Scott McFetridge / AP
While acknowledging there can be delays as its investigations unfold, SafeSport defended its temporary suspensions in a statement as “a unique and valuable intervention” when there are concerns of a risk to others.
Nevertheless, in 2024, Gardner was able to land a job helping care for surgical patients at an Iowa hospital, two years after the abuse allegations against him were reported to SafeSport and the police.
And it was not until late May that West Des Moines police executed a search warrant at his home, eventually leading to the recovery of a trove of photos and videos on his computer and cellphone of nude young girls, court records show.
Authorities in Iowa sealed the court documents after the AP asked about the investigation earlier this month, before details of the federal charge were made public Friday. Gardner, Qiao and Gardner’s former employer in Mississippi did not respond to AP requests for comment.
“The job that I’ve always wanted”
Chow’s Gymnastics is best known as the academy where U.S. gymnasts Shawn Johnson and Gabby Douglas trained before becoming gold medalists at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
Qiao opened the gym in 1998 after starring on the Chinese national team and moving to the United States to coach at the University of Iowa. The gym became a draw for top youth gymnasts, with some families moving to Iowa to train there.
Gardner moved to Iowa in September 2018, jumping at the opportunity to coach under Qiao.
“This is the job that I’ve always wanted. Chow is really someone I have looked up to since I’ve been coaching,” Gardner told the ABC affiliate WOI-TV in 2019. “And you can tell when you step foot in the gym, just even from coaching the girls, the culture that he’s built. It’s amazing. It’s beautiful.”
A year later, Gardner was promoted to director of Chow’s Winter Classic, an annual meet that draws more than 1,000 gymnasts to Iowa. He also coached a junior Olympics team during his four-year tenure at Chow’s.
Several of his students earned college gymnastics scholarships, but Gardner said he had bigger goals.
“You want to leave a thumbprint on their life, so when they go off hopefully to school, to bigger and better things, that they remember Chow’s as family,” he said in a 2020 interview with WOI-TV.
Coach accused of sexual misconduct in Iowa, Mississippi
Gardner is accused of abusing his position at Chow’s and his former job at Jump’In Gymnastics in Mississippi to prey on girls under his tutelage, according to a nine-page FBI affidavit released Friday that summarizes the allegations against him.
Sean Gardner
Iowa Department of Corrections / AP
A girl reported to SafeSport in March 2022 that Gardner used “inappropriate spotting techniques” in which he would put his hands between her legs and touch her vagina, the affidavit said.
It said she alleged Gardner would ask girls if they were sexually active and call them “idiots, sluts, and whores.” She said this behavior began after his hiring in 2018 and continued until she left the gym in 2020 and provided the names of six other potential victims.
SafeSport suspended Gardner in July 2022 — four months after the girl’s report — a provisional step it can take in severe cases with “sufficient evidentiary support” as investigations proceed.
A month after that, the center received a report from another girl alleging additional “sexual contact and physical abuse,” including that Gardner similarly fondled her during workouts, the FBI affidavit said. The girl said that he once dragged her across the carpet so hard that it burned her buttocks, the affidavit said.
SafeSport shared the reports with West Des Moines police, in line with its policy requiring adults who interact with youth athletes to disclose potential criminal cases to law enforcement.
While SafeSport’s suspension took Gardner out of gymnastics, the criminal investigation quickly hit a roadblock.
Police records show a detective told SafeSport to urge the alleged victims to file criminal complaints, but only one of their mothers contacted police in 2022. That woman said her daughter did not want to pursue criminal charges, and police suspended the investigation.
Victims of abuse are often reluctant to cooperate with police, said Ken Lang, a retired detective and associate professor of criminal justice at Milligan University.
“In this case you have the prestige of this facility,” he said. “Do they want to associate their name with that, in that way, when their aspirations were to succeed in gymnastics?”
Police suspended the investigation, even as Gardner was on probation for his second-offense of driving while intoxicated.
A dormant case reopened, and a year later, an arrest
The case stayed dormant until April 2024 when another former Chow’s student came forward to the West Des Moines Police Department to report abuse allegations, according to a now-sealed affidavit signed by police detective Jeff Lyon. The AP is not identifying the student in line with its policy of not naming victims of alleged sexual abuse.
The now 18-year-old told police she began taking lessons from Gardner when she was 11 or 12 in 2019, initially seeing him as a “father figure” who tried to help her get through her parents’ divorce. He told her she could tell him “anything,” the affidavit said.
When she moved in 2021, she told police, he gave her a hug and said she could text and follow him on Instagram and other social media sites, where he went by the nickname “Coach Seanie,” because gym policy barring such contact no longer applied.
According to a summary of her statement provided in Lyon’s affidavit, she said Gardner fondled her during exercises, repeatedly touching her vagina; rubbed her back and butt and discussed his sex life; and made her do inappropriate stretches that exposed her privates.
She told police she suspected he used his cellphone to film her in that position.
Reached by the AP, the teen’s mother declined comment. The mother told police she was interested in a monetary settlement with Chow’s because the gym “had been made aware of the complaints and they did nothing to stop them,” according to Lyon’s affidavit. The gym didn’t return AP messages seeking comment.
It took 16 months after the teen’s 2024 report for the FBI to arrest Gardner, who made an initial court appearance in Des Moines on Friday on a charge of producing visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, which can carry up to 30 years in prison. A public defender assigned to represent him didn’t return AP messages seeking comment.
It’s unclear why the case took so long to investigate and also when the FBI, which had to pay $138 million to Nassar’s victims for botching that investigation, got involved in the case.
Among evidence seized by investigators in late May were a cellphone, laptop and a desktop computer along with handwritten notes between Gardner and his former pupils, according to the sealed court documents.
They found images of girls, approximately 6 to 14 years in age, who were nude, using the toilet or changing into leotards, those documents show. Those images appear to have come from a hidden camera in a restroom.
They also uncovered 50 video files and 400 photos, including some that appeared to be child pornography, according to the FBI affidavit. One video allegedly shows Gardner entering the bathroom and turning off the camera.
Investigators also found images of an adult woman secretly filmed entering and exiting a bathtub, and identified her as Gardner’s ex-girlfriend. That woman as well as the gym’s owner, Candi Workman, told investigators the images appeared to come from Jump’In Gymnastics’ facility in Purvis, Mississippi, which has since been closed.
SafeSport’s power has limits
SafeSport has long touted that it can deliver sanctions in cases where criminal charges are not pursued as key to its mission. However, Gardner’s ability to land a job in health care illustrates the limits of that power: It can ban people from sports but that sanction is not guaranteed to reach the general public.
While not commenting about Gardner’s case directly, it said in a statement provided to AP that a number of issues factor into why cases can take so long to close, including the 8,000 reports it receives a year with only around 30 full-time investigators. It has revamped some procedures, it said, in an attempt to become more efficient.
“While the Center is able and often does cooperate in law enforcement investigations,” it said, “law enforcement is not required to share information, updates, or even confirm an investigation is ongoing.”
USA Gymnastics President Li Li Leung called the center’s task “really tough, difficult to navigate.”
“I would like to see more consistency with their outcomes and sanctions,” Leung said. “I would like to see more standardization on things. I would like to see more communication, more transparency from their side.”
A case that lingers, even after the SafeSport ban
As the investigation proceeded, Gardner said on his Facebook page he had landed a new job in May 2024 as a surgical technologist at MercyOne West Des Moines Medical Center. It’s a role that calls for positioning patients on the operating room table, and assisting with procedures and post-surgery care.
Asked about Gardner’s employment, hospital spokesman Todd Mizener told the AP: “The only information I can provide is that he is no longer” at the hospital.
Meanwhile, the case lingers, leaving lives in limbo more than three years after the SafeSport Center and police first learned of it.
“SafeSport is now part of a larger problem rather than a solution, if it was ever a solution,” said attorney Silvey. “The most fundamental professional task such as coordination with local or federal law enforcement gets botched on a daily basis, hundreds of times a year now.”
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Hezly Rivera was the fresh face a year ago. The newcomer. The teenager on a team of 20-something Olympic gymnasts, doing her best to absorb what she could from Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles.
The one thing that stood out, even more than the sometimes otherworldly gymnastics, is the way her fellow gold-medal-winning teammates went about their business.
“They looked so confident,” Rivera said. “They’re like, ‘I’m going to go out and I’m going to hit.’ It gave me that confidence as well.”
Looks like it.
The now 17-year-old who says she’s paying no attention to the idea that she’s the leader of the women’s program in the early stages of the run-up to the 2028 Olympics certainly looks the part.
Buoyed by a polished steadiness — and a beam routine that finally looked the way it does back home at her home gym in Texas — Rivera captured her first national title Sunday night at the U.S. Championships. Her two-day total of 112.000 was good enough to fend off a challenge from Leanne Wong and put her in excellent position to lead the four-woman American delegation at the world championships in Jakarta, Indonesia, in October.
Rivera, by far the youngest member of the five-woman team that finished atop the podium in Paris a year ago, bounced back from a shaky performance at the U.S. Classic last month with the kind of measured, refined gymnastics that she attributed to simply “letting go” of whatever pressure she might feel as the lone Olympic gold medalist in a remarkably young field.
“No matter how rough the competition is, I still can get back into the gym and work hard because all those months previously that I’ve been working hard, I know it’s going to show up eventually,” she said. “So it kind of just took a weight off my shoulders.”
Rivera, at the very least, locked up a spot in the world championship selection camp next month. So did Wong, a four-time world championship medalist, budding entrepreneur and pre-med student who shows no signs of slowing down despite years of competing collegiately and at the elite level simultaneously.
Asked how she juggles it all, the 21-year-old who insists she doesn’t keep a planner said she lives by the motto “there’s time for everything.”
Joscelyn Roberson, an Olympic alternate last summer, shook off an ankle injury suffered at the end of her floor routine to finish third as the three most internationally experienced athletes in the field looked ready to lead after spending most of the last Olympic quad learning from Biles and company.
“You go from, ‘Oh you’re so young, you’re so young,’ to, ‘Oh, you are the older kid,’” the 19-year-old Roberson said. “People say, ‘How are you feeling?’ Like, I honestly don’t feel that different.”
Two summers ago, Roberson was Biles’ bouncy sidekick. Now she’s among the leaders of the next wave.
“I felt like more responsible to let the little, smaller, less experienced kids know it’s not the end of the day if you have a bad day or if you had one fall,” Roberson said. “I want to help them grow instead of think ‘I have to be perfect.’”
Roberson then walked the walk. Or maybe limped the limp. She appeared ready to make it a three-woman race for first until she turned an ankle on the final tumbling pass of her floor routine.
The rising sophomore at Arkansas gingerly continued on anyway. She gritted her way through her vault dismount, though the five-tenths (0.5) deduction for using an additional pad for her protection took her out of contention for the all-around.
Still, the victory hardly came easy for Rivera. She was pushed through four rotations by Wong, who started Sunday with a stuck Cheng vault and didn’t relent over the course of two hours.
Rivera responded each time — she posted the top scores on three of the four events — but it wasn’t until she walked off the podium following her floor routine with victory in hand that she could relax.
“Everything fell into place,” Rivera said. “I tried not to get too overwhelmed because nerves obviously can be there, especially when you know you’re in a spot to win a national title, but I just took all pressure off myself.”
Skye Blakely, who was injured at the Olympic Trials in both 2021 and 2024, was sublime on both uneven bars and balance beam to put herself in consideration to make the world team.
PITTSBURGH — PITTSBURGH (AP) — Simone Biles simply wanted to mix it up when the gymnastics superstar invited some of the top American men to join her post-Olympic Tour.
“Bringing the guys on board was designed to show what men’s gymnastics has to offer,” Biles said. “And I just think that over the years, we kind of know the guys, but we don’t really know them, know them.”
The co-ed nature of the second iteration of the Gold Over America Tour — a not-so-subtle nod to Biles’ status as the greatest gymnast of all time — has given the show a different energy than the first, which was entirely female-centric.
Biles praised Richard and company for getting out of their comfort zone and leaning into the performative aspect of the show, which required a lengthy string of 12-hour practice days to prepare.
“We took a risk by bringing the guys on board,” Biles said. “But the outcome has been absolutely amazing. And you have the kids in the crowd chanting ‘Ian! Ian!’ ‘Fredrick! Fredrick!’ and that’s just so cool.”
The 20-year-old Richard’s long-term goal has always been to make men’s gymnastics matter, a daunting proposition in an era when support at the NCAA Division I level — the prime feeder into the U.S. Olympic program — has never been more tenuous.
There is an urgency to turn the splash of notoriety the men earned in Paris into something more sustainable. There have been early signs of progress, most notably an influx of young boys across the country rushing to join their local gym.
It’s a start. So is spending two months barnstorming from coast to coast — the show hits Philadelphia on Friday and New York on Saturday — with newly minted bronze medals on their resume and a tacit endorsement from the face of the U.S. Olympic movement, particularly because their inclusion feels earned.
“It doesn’t really feel like we are ‘the pity case,’” Richard said. “It feels like (we) are on the same standard (as the women).”
That’s by design, and also a nod to Biles’ considerable influence. The 27-year-old has reached the level of stardom where everything she does — from watching her husband Jonathan Owens play for the Chicago Bears to what she shares on social media — can become news, whether that’s her intention or not.
“I know if we do something, the attention will be there,” she said. “But I kind of just ignore it and just go day by day. But I am aware that the attention that it does bring.”
The 11-time Olympic medalist and first two-time all-around champion in more than five decades is taking her time before making any firm decisions about her athletic future. For now, she is focused on letting herself relax and enjoy this chapter of her life before moving on to the next one.
“I got to go to the U.S. Open (tennis tournament),” she said. “I got to go to my first WNBA game. It’s like supporting people who have supported me, which has been really exciting because usually we don’t have that time. And now that I have more time on my hands, it’s been really fun.”
She and Owens are planning to move into a home they built in the northern Houston suburbs later this fall. She is lending her image, her likeness and her foodie sensibilities to the “Taste of Gold” restaurant scheduled to open at Houston Intercontinental Airport early next year. She might even revisit the “ Daring Simone Biles ” series that initially premiered in the summer of 2022.
Biles would also like to return to the Olympics, or at least the Winter Olympics, after chatting up skiing star Mikaela Shiffrin. Just don’t expect Biles to snap on a pair of skis and follow Shiffrin down the mountain.
“I can’t stand the cold. I mean I have hand warmers right now in each pocket,” Biles said with a laugh while pulling one out of the left pocket of her jacket as proof. “They’re like, ‘You have to go to a Winter Olympics.’ And I’m like ‘Do they have (luxury) boxes?’ Because, you know, if they want to put me in a luxury box where it’ll be warm, that’d be great.”
LAUSANNE, Switzerland — American gymnast Jordan Chiles is asking Switzerland’s Supreme Court to overturn a ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport that stripped Chiles of a bronze medal in floor exercise at the 2024 Olympics.
Chiles, with the support of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee and USA Gymnastics, filed the appeal on Monday, a little over a month after CAS voided an on-floor appeal by Chiles’ coach Cecile Landi during the event finals on Aug. 5 that vaulted Chiles from fifth to third.
CAS, following a hearing requested by Romanian officials, ruled Landi’s appeal came 4 seconds beyond the 1-minute time limit for scoring inquiries and recommended the initial finishing order be restored. The International Gymnastics Federation complied and the International Olympic Committee ended up awarding bronze to Romanian Ana Barbosu on Aug. 16.
Chiles’ appeal maintains that the CAS hearing violated her “right to be heard” by refusing to allow video evidence that Chiles and USA Gymnastics believe showed Landi appealed within the 1-minute time allotment. Chiles’ appeal also argues that Hamid G. Gharavi, president of the CAS panel, has a conflict of interest due to past legal ties to Romania.
USA Gymnastics wrote in a statement Monday night that it made a “collective, strategic decision to have Jordan lead the initial filing. USAG is closely coordinating with Jordan and her legal team and will make supportive filings with the court in the continued pursuit of justice for Jordan.”
The appeal is the next step in what could be a months- or years-long legal battle over the gymnastics scores.
Chiles was last among the eight women to compete during the floor exercise finals initially given a score of 13.666 that placed her fifth, right behind Barbosu and fellow Romanian Sabrina Maneca-Voinea. Landi called for an inquiry on Chiles’ score.
“At this point, we had nothing to lose, so I was like ‘We’re just going to try,’” Landi said after the awards ceremony. “I honestly didn’t think it was going to happen, but when I heard her scream, I turned around and was like ‘What?’”
Judges awarded the appeal, leapfrogging Chiles past Barbosu and Maneca-Voinea for the last spot on the podium.
Romanian officials appealed to CAS on several fronts while also asking a bronze medal be awarded to Chiles, Barbosu and Maneca-Voinea. The FIG and the IOC ultimately gave the bronze to Barbosu, who beat her teammate on a tiebreaker because she produced a higher execution score during her routine.
Just four seconds may be the reason Jordan Chiles loses her bronze medal in the gymnastics floor exercise final.
The Court of Arbitration of Sport stunned the gymnastics world on Saturday by voiding the inquiry that moved the Olympian into bronze position during Monday’s dramatic final.
In the immediate aftermath of Chiles’ floor routine, earning her a score of 13.666, U.S. coach Cecile Landi submitted an inquiry with the judges over the gymnast’s difficulty level.
CAS ruled that Landi’s appeal came outside of the 1-minute window allowed by the International Gymnastics Federation. How far outside that window did the appeal come? Four seconds.
The decision to reinstate Chiles’ fifth place score would place her behind Romania’s Ana Barbosu and Sabrina Maneca-Voinea. The organization said the federation should determine the final ranking “in accordance with the above decision,” and decide who would get the medal.
USA Gymnastics said in a statement it is “devastated” by the ruling.
“The inquiry into the Difficulty Value of Jordan Chiles’ floor exercise routine was filed in good faith and, we believed, in accordance with FIG rules to ensure accurate scoring,” the organization wrote.
The 23-year-old Chiles became a target on social media in the aftermath of the late switch, with critics asking her to give back the medal or offering racist remarks. Chiles posted on X earlier this week that “it’s funny how people can still never be happy for someone.”
Chiles’ mother, Gina Chiles, called out the critics in a post, writing she was “tired” of the derogatory comments being leveled at Jordan.
“My daughter is a highly decorated Olympian with the biggest heart and a level of sportsmanship that is unmatched,” Gina Chiles posted. “And she’s being called disgusting things.”
Joint Statement from USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee regarding the CAS decision on the women’s floor final:
The United States finished the gymnastics meet of the 2024 Olympics in a strong fashion with Simone Biles winning silver and Jordan Chiles taking home the bronze in the women’s floor exercise final Monday after an inquiry shook up the final standings.
The longtime friends and U.S. gymnastics teammates knew they needed to find a way to honor Brazilian star Rebeca Andrade. They just weren’t sure how.
What they came up with after Andrade’s gold medal on floor exercise at the end of 10 days inside Bercy Arena symbolized the state of their sport at the 2024 Games.
Where it is. And hopefully where it’s going.
Biles, the unequivocal Greatest of All Time, and Chiles, a three-time Olympic medalist whose journey back to the Games was a testament to talent and grit, dropped down to one knee. It was a show of respect to Andrade, whose excellence is symbolic of a sport that is getting more diverse, more inclusive and perhaps more positive as it goes.
“It was just the right thing to do,” Biles said about a moment that soon went viral, with even the Louvre itself suggesting it might be worthy enough for a spot somewhere in the vicinity of the Mona Lisa.
Fitting for an Olympics that offered masterpieces everywhere you looked.
Biles eagerly shares the stage
Biles and the American women finished off their “Redemption Tour” by reclaiming gold in the team final. Biles exorcised whatever inner doubt remained from the Tokyo Games — and shut up the haters in the process — by winning a second all-around title eight years after her first.
Andrade led Brazil to its first Olympic team medal (a bronze), then added three more in the individual competition, finishing runner-up to Biles in the all-around and vault before becoming the first woman in memory to edge Biles in a floor exercise final.
The Italian women won their first team medal in nearly a century. Japan put together a stirring rally on high bar in the last rotation to slip by rival China for gold. The U.S. men and “Pommel Horse Guy” Stephen Nedoroscik returned to the Olympic podium for the first time in 16 years. Carlos Yulo of the Philippines tripled his country’s Summer Olympic all-time gold medal count in a mere 24 hours.
The good vibes were everywhere, led by Biles, who seemed to make it a point to take her vibrant spotlight and redirect it toward the other women on the floor as often as possible.
That was never more evident than what could have been the last day of her career. The 27-year-old’s voice could be heard shouting encouragement to each of the other balance beam finalists inside an eerily quiet arena. Regardless of nationality. Regardless of age. Regardless of score. Regardless of how well she might know them.
Afterward, Biles spoke glowingly of Italians Alice D’Amato and Manila Esposito, who earned gold and bronze in beam after half the field — Biles included — fell inside an arena so still that Biles joked she could hear cell phones buzzing.
“I’m super excited and proud of them because now they’re building bricks (for a program) for the other Italian girls,” she said.
U.S. women’s team dismantles stereotypes
Jordan Chiles, of the United States, and Simone Biles, of the United States, celebrate after the women’s artistic gymnastics individual floor finals in Bercy Arena at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Monday, Aug. 5, 2024, in Paris, France. Biles won the silver medal and Chiles the bronze medal. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)
Those bricks have long been in place in the U.S., yet what Biles, Chiles, six-time Olympic medalist Sunisa Lee and three-time Olympic medalist Jade Carey did in Paris is destroy the “little girls in pretty boxes” stereotype that has lingered over the sport for decades once and for all.
The four 20-somethings — oh, and 16-year-old Hezly Rivera, too — came to France with a score to settle. Biles to put those strange days in Japan three years ago firmly in the rearview mirror. Lee to rid herself of the “imposter syndrome” that kept nagging at her following her all-around gold in Tokyo and the health issues that pushed her to the verge of quitting over and over again. Chiles and Carey to put the Americans back on top after ceding the top of the podium to Russia.
The group checked every box. The U.S. won eight of 18 possible medals, including four for Biles to boost her Olympic total to 11, tied for the second most ever by a women’s gymnast in the history of the event.
Yet just as important as the results was the process they took to get there. There was pressure but there was also joy in abundance for the oldest team the Americans have ever brought to the Games, a team that has dubbed itself “The Golden Girls.”
“It’s been so much fun,” Carey said. “And I think so many have seen that, that we’re just having fun out there. And I think that’s bringing out the best gymnastics from us.”
‘We did it’
A decade ago, the core four would be heading off into retirement while the next wave of prodigies came along. It says something about the rapidly shifting demographics on the floor and the rising interest in women’s gymnastics at large that not one of them — Biles included — has made any firm decisions about their future.
Biles nudged the door toward Los Angeles 2028 open when she said over the weekend “never say never.” Lee, still just 21, is taking time before weighing her options. Carey and Chiles will join Biles on her post-Olympic tour and have college eligibility remaining.
No one is in a hurry. Biles in particular. She chastised the media for pressing about the future so soon after the biggest moment of athletes’ lives. For a long time — for too long, in hindsight — she fixated on what’s next.
No longer. She was intent on soaking in her third Olympics. Of enjoying it. And she did, from the first pressure-packed rotation in qualifying to that moment with Chiles and Andrade, when the last of the weight she’s been carrying for years lifted off her shoulders, perhaps for good.
“There’s nothing left,” Biles said. “We did our job, you know what I’m saying? So yeah, it was hard, but we did it.”
Simone Biles won silver in the women’s gymnastics individual floor final at the Paris Olympics on Monday. Earlier falls on the balance beam, including falls by Biles and Suni Lee, left the U.S. out of individual medals contention in that apparatus. “CBS Saturday Morning” co-host and CBS News and sports correspondent Dana Jacobson is in Paris with a recap.
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Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade has won many titles in her career, but never has she won an Olympic gold medal on floor – knocking the 7-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles to second place.
Andrade now has six Olympic medals, making her the most decorated Brazilian Olympian in history, surpassing sailors Robert Scheidt and Torben Grael.
American Jordan Chiles had originally finished fifth, but a last-second inquiry bumped her score by one tenth to give her the bronze (13.766) over Romania’s Ana Barbosu (13.700). This is the first individual Olympic medal of Chiles career.
While on the medal podium, Biles and Chiles bowed down to Andrade – a moment that has sparked a lot of talk on social media. Both athletes spoke highly of Andrade and said she deserved the recognition.
“First off, it was an all Black podium. Second off, why don’t we just give her her flowers?” Chiles said after the competition. “Not only has she given Simone her flowers, but a lot of us in the United States. So giving it back it what makes it so beautiful. I felt like it was needed.”
Regardless of the result of the floor exercise final, Biles’ performance in Paris has further cemented her place in the history books. She concludes her third Olympic Games with 11 Olympic medals, seven of which are gold.
“I’ve accomplished way more than my wildest dreams – not just at this Olympics but in the sport. So I can’t be mad at my performances,” Biles said after the competition. “A couple of years ago I didn’t think I’d be back here at an Olympic Games, so competing and then walking away with four medals – I’m not mad about it. I’m pretty proud of myself.”
The skill in question for Chiles was a tour jete full – split leap followed by a full spin on the way down. Chiles did not receive credit for the full spin in the qualification round and initially did not receive credit for it in the final either.
Chiles’ coaches thought she performed the skill better than in qualifications and put in an inquiry for the judges to re-evaluate the skill.
“I was not confident but, what do you have to lose?” Chiles’ coach Cecile Landi said afterward. “She was off of the podium already … I had the same angle as the judges, and I felt it was way better than all the meets that she’s done. So, what the heck. You might as well try it, you know?”
After evaluation, the judges gave Chiles credit for the skill, which ultimately raised her score by 1 tenth of a point, which was enough to move her into bronze medal position.
“I’m on cloud nine,” Chiles said. “This is my first-ever (Olympic) individual event final, at my second Olympics. I have no words. Coming out with a medal… that was my goal, but that inquiry went in, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, I don’t know what will happen. Will I go up or down?’ So I’m very happy where I’m at right now. This medal means everything to me. This is beyond words. I’m so proud of myself.”
Team USA gymnast Suni Lee won bronze in the uneven bars final at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris on Sunday, closing out the event with a strong finish that prompted roaring cheers from an audience that included fellow star athlete Simone Biles as she landed her dismount.
Lee was the only American who participated in the final that allowed only eight gymnasts to compete after Biles placed ninth in the qualification round.
The uneven bars are Lee’s signature skill. Her performance in Sunday’s event scored an impressive 14.800 from the judging panel, earning third place behind 17-year-old Kaylia Nemour of Algeria, who ended qualifiers with top marks and fulfilled expectations as the favorite to win in the final, and 17-year-old Qui Qiyan of China, who was world champion on uneven bars in 2023.
Nemour took home the gold after her routine scored a remarkable 15.700, while Qui took home silver with 15.000.
This is a breaking story and will be updated with more details.
Emily Mae Czachor is a reporter and news editor at CBSNews.com. She covers breaking news, often focusing on crime and extreme weather. Emily Mae has previously written for outlets including the Los Angeles Times, BuzzFeed and Newsweek.
Nedoroscik nabs bronze, Ireland wins first-ever medal in Olympic gymnastics in pommel horse final
Updated: 9:57 AM PDT Aug 3, 2024
WELL, STEPHEN NATHALIE POZO TRAINED HERE AT THE STERLING ACADEMY OF GYMNASTICS ALL THE WAY THROUGH HIGH SCHOOL. HIS COACHES SAY HE WAS ALWAYS GIFTED, ESPECIALLY ON HIS SIGNATURE EVENT. HE’S PROVEN THAT HE CAN SHOW UP IN THE BIGGEST AND BRIGHTEST STAGES BEFORE HE WAS AN OLYMPIAN, STEPHEN ED TRAINED HERE AT THE STERLING ACADEMY OF GYMNASTICS TO SEE WHAT HE WENT THROUGH HERE. YOU KNOW, DOING ALL AROUND. THEN SPECIALIZING ON ONE EVENT AND THEN HAVING THE STRENGTH AND FORTITUDE TO STICK WITH THAT ONE EVENT ALL THE WAY THROUGH COLLEGE AND THEN PAST COLLEGE AND MAKE IT TO THE INTERNATIONAL ELITE LEVEL. IT’S INCREDIBLE. HIS LATEST ELITE COMPETITION BEING THE OLYMPICS, WHERE HIS SIGNATURE POMMEL HORSE ROUTINE HELPED THE U.S. MEN WIN BRONZE, ENDING A 16 YEAR MEDAL DROUGHT FOR THE COUNTRY. FOR HIM TO COMPETE, I’M GOING TO SAY I’M GOING TO SAY IT WAS NUCLEAR ELECTRIC. IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE. THE WHOLE PLACE WAS OUT LOUD AND HIS PARENTS, JOHN AND SHERYL NEDOROST, GOT TO SEE THEIR SON’S MEDAL WORTHY EFFORT IN PARIS, BUT ADMIT IT WASN’T AN EASY WATCH. I GET SO SICK I CAN’T EAT. I CAN’T SLEEP, I GET A HEADACHE, AND IT’S LIKE I CAN’T STOP SHAKING. LUCKILY, STEPHEN HAS A LOT OF INTERNATIONAL EXPERIENCE UNDER HIS BELT, WINNING THE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ON POMMEL HORSE IN 2021. THEY’RE HOPING FOR A SIMILAR RESULT IN THE GAMES. LIVING ON CLOUD NINE AND JUST DON’T PINCH US BECAUSE WE STILL HAVE SATURDAY TO GO. STEPHEN WILL COMPETE I
Nedoroscik nabs bronze, Ireland wins first-ever medal in Olympic gymnastics in pommel horse final
Updated: 9:57 AM PDT Aug 3, 2024
Two-time world champion Rhys McClenaghan claimed Ireland’s first medal in Olympic gymnastics.Even before his name was announced, McClenaghan had to choke back tears. He then yelled in delight and cried for good when his massive score of 15.533 points on pommel horse was announced.Competing right after McClenaghan, American gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik — aka “Pommel Horse Guy” — was excellent, too, but could not match his Irish rival’s score. He scored 15.300 points, which earned him the bronze medal.Nariman Kurbanov of Kazakhstan took silver with 15.433 points.Nedoroscik helped the U.S. men earn bronze in the team final earlier this week, sealing the program’s first Olympic medal in 16 years with a lights-out routine that made him a viral sensation.
Two-time world champion Rhys McClenaghan claimed Ireland’s first medal in Olympic gymnastics.
Even before his name was announced, McClenaghan had to choke back tears. He then yelled in delight and cried for good when his massive score of 15.533 points on pommel horse was announced.
Competing right after McClenaghan, American gymnast Stephen Nedoroscik — aka “Pommel Horse Guy” — was excellent, too, but could not match his Irish rival’s score. He scored 15.300 points, which earned him the bronze medal.
Nariman Kurbanov of Kazakhstan took silver with 15.433 points.
Nedoroscik helped the U.S. men earn bronze in the team final earlier this week, sealing the program’s first Olympic medal in 16 years with a lights-out routine that made him a viral sensation.
Stephen Nedoroscik of United States celebrates his performance on Pommel Horse during the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Team Final on day three of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Bercy Arena on July 29, 2024 in Paris, France.
Daniela Porcelli/Eurasia Sport Images/Getty Images
Team USA men’s gymnastics competitions at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris have already gone viral thanks to pommel horse star Stephen Nedoroscik, whose performance in the team competition helped propel Team USA to a bronze medal. Labeld the Clark Kent of the Paris Olympic Games, Nedoroscik has captured the imagination of fans watching from home.
Nedoroscik isn’t the only men’s gymnast turning out stellar performances at the Paris Games, making the Olympic men’s gymnastics competitions some of the most excited events at the Olympics this summer. Keep reading below to find out when and how to watch men’s gymnastics at the 2024 Paris Olympics, even if you don’t have cable.
When are the men’s gymnastics events at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games?
Olympic men’s gymnastics is scheduled to run from July 27 through August 5, 2024. The next major event, the men’s all-around final, is scheduled for Wednesday, July 31 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. ET.
When does Team USA men’s gymnastics compete next at the 2024 Summer Olympics?
Team USA will compete on Wednesday, July 31, 2024 in the men’s all-around final at 11:30 a.m. – 2:15 p.m. ET (8:30 a.m. -11:15 a.m. PT) The men’s all around final will broadcast on NBC, and stream on Peacock and the platforms featured below. For cord cutters, or fans without a cable subscription, Peacock. is the most cost-effective way to watch every event of the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Where can you watch the Olympic men’s gymnastics events?
Men’s gymnastics at the 2024 Paris Olympics will air on NBC, USA Network and E!, and will stream on Peacock.
How to watch the Olympic men’s gymnastics events without cable
While many cable packages include NBC and the other channels broadcasting the 2024 Summer Olympics, it’s easy to watch the 2024 Summer Olympics gymnastics events if those channels aren’t included in your cable TV subscription, or if you don’t have cable at all. Your best options for watching are below. (Streaming options will require an internet provider.)
In addition to major sporting events like the 2024 Paris Olympics, Peacock offers its subscribers live-streaming access to NFL games that air on NBC and sports airing on USA Network. The streaming service has plenty more live sports to offer, including Big Ten basketball, Premier League soccer and WWE wrestling (including formerly PPV-only events such as WrestleMania). There are 80,000 hours worth of recorded content to watch as well, including hit movies and TV series such as “The Office” and “Parks and Recreation.”
A Peacock subscription costs $8 per month. An annual plan is available for $80 per year (best value). You can cancel anytime.
Top features of Peacock:
Peacock’s Olympic coverage will include “multi-view” options in which fans can curate their viewing journey, choosing the Olympic events they are most interested in watching.
Peacock will air exclusive coverage of PGA Tour events, Olympic trials and Paris Olympics 2024 events.
Peacock features plenty of current and classic NBC and Bravo TV shows, plus original programming such as the award-winning reality show “The Traitors.”
For streaming the Paris Olympics — and for streaming all the must-watch college football and NFL games to follow this fall — we like Sling TV. The cable TV replacement option is currently offering $25 off every pricing tier. For $20, subscribe to your first month of the Sling Blue tier, which includes your local NBC station. You also get access to E! and USA Network (including 400 hours of Olympics programming on USA in 4K resolution). We suggest leveling up your coverage to the Sling Orange + Blue tier, which includes your local network affiliates plus ESPN, TNT, TBS and other popular cable channels, all for $35 for your first month of service.
We like that there’s a $11 per month sports add-on plan called Sports Extra and the option to add on Paramount+ if you want to catch even more sporting events this fall.
Top features of Sling TV Orange + Blue plan:
Sling TV is our top choice for streaming major sporting events like NASCAR.
There are 46 channels to watch in total, including local NBC, Fox and ABC affiliates (where available).
You get access to most local NFL games and nationally broadcast games at the lowest price.
All subscription tiers include 50 hours of cloud-based DVR storage.
You can add Golf Channel, NBA TV, NHL Network, NFL RedZone, MLB Network, Tennis Channel and more sports-oriented channels (19 in total) via Sling TV’s Sports Extras add-on.
You can also catch the 2024 Summer Olympics airing on network TV on Fubo. Fubo is a sports-centric streaming service that offers access to network-aired sports like the Tour de France, and almost every NFL game next season. Packages include the live feed of sports and programming airing on CBS, Fox, NBC, ESPN, NFL Network and more, so you’ll be able to watch more than just the Summer Olympics- all without a cable subscription.
To watch the 2024 Summer Olympic Games gymnastics events without cable, start a seven-day free trial of Fubo. You can begin watching immediately on your TV, phone, tablet or computer. In addition to Olympic events, you’ll have access to NFL football, Fubo offers NCAA college sports, MLB, NBA, NHL, MLS and international soccer games. Fubo’s Pro Tier is priced at $80 per month after your free seven-day trial.
Sports fans will want to consider adding on the $7.99 per month Fubo Extra package, which includes MLB Network, NBA TV, NHL Network, Tennis Channel, SEC Network and more channels. Or upgrade to the Fubo Elite tier and get all the Fubo Extra channels, plus the ability to stream in 4K, for an extra $10 per month.
Top features of Fubo Pro Tier:
There are no contracts with Fubo — you can cancel at any time.
You can watch sporting events up to 72 hours after they air live with Fubo’s lookback feature.
The Pro tier includes over 180 channels, including NFL Network and Golf Channel.
Fubo includes all the channels you’ll need to watch college and pro sports, including CBS (not available through Sling TV).
All tiers come with 1,000 hours of cloud-based DVR recording.
You can watch the 2024 Summer Olympics and more top-tier sports coverage, including NFL Network, with Hulu + Live TV. The bundle features access to 90 channels, including Golf Channel. Unlimited DVR storage is also included. Watch the 2024 Summer Olympic Games and every NFL game on every network next season with Hulu + Live TV, plus exclusive live regular season NFL games, popular studio shows (including NFL Total Access and the Emmy-nominated show Good Morning Football) and lots more.
Hulu + Live TV comes bundled with ESPN+ and Disney+ for $77 per month after a three-day free trial.
Watch Olympic men’s gymnastics events live with a digital HDTV antenna
Amazon
You can also watch the 2024 Summer Olympic Games gymnastics events airing on network TV with an affordable indoor antenna, which pulls in local over-the-air HDTV channels such as CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox, PBS, Univision and more. Here’s the kicker: There’s no monthly charge.
For anyone living in a partially blocked-off area (those near mountains or first-floor apartments), a digital TV antenna may not pick up a good signal — or any signal at all. But for many homes, a digital TV antenna provides a seriously inexpensive way to watch sports without paying a cable company. Indoor TV antennas can also provide some much-needed TV backup if a storm knocks out your cable.
This ultra-thin, multi-directional Mohu Leaf Supreme Pro digital antenna with a 65-mile range can receive hundreds of HD TV channels, including ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox and Univision, and can filter out cellular and FM signals. It delivers a high-quality picture in 1080p HDTV, top-tier sound and comes with a 12-foot digital coax cable.
Fanatics: Get the newest Team USA gear and merch
While most of us couldn’t make it to the 2024 Summer Olympics in person, rooting from home is more fun with the latest team merch — in this case the team is the home team. Fanatics is our first stop for the latest drop of Team USA gear, featuring player jerseys, Team USA shirts and jackets, plus iconic pieces like the Polo Ralph Lauren Villagewear pullover sweatshirt. Tap the button below to get your Team USA gear just in time to cheer on the home team.
2024 Summer Olympics: Men’s gymnastics schedule of events
(L-R) Bronze medalists Asher Hong, Paul Juda, Brody Malone, Stephen Nedoroscik and Frederick Richard of Team United States pose with their medals on the podium during the medal ceremony for the Artistic Gymnastics Men’s Team Final on day three of the Olympic Games Paris 2024 at Bercy Arena on July 29, 2024 in Paris, France.
Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Men’s gymnastics will start on July 27, 2024 and conclude on Monday, August 5. Men’s gymnastics will air live on the following dates:
August 5: Men’s Apparatus Finals (Parallel Bars, High Bar), 5:45 a.m. – 9:15 a.m. (NBC/Peacock)
When are the medal events for men’s gymnastics?
There are eight medal events in men’s gymnastics at the 2024 Summer Olympics. They are: team, individual all-around, floor exercise, vault, pommel horse, still rings, high bar and parallel bars.
Who is on Team USA?
The Team USA men’s gymanstic roster includes, Brody Malone, Fred Richard, Asher Hong, Paul Juda, and Stephen Nedoroscik. Shane Wiskus and Khoi Young will serve as the 2024 Olympic alternates.
Who won the gold medal events last Olympics?
Daiki Hashimoto of Japan won the all-around gold medal in men’s gymnastics at the Tokyo Games.
It’s no secret the United States women’s gymnastics team wants to stand atop the medal podium once again. The team themselves coined the 2024 Paris Olympics their “redemption tour.”
Redemption can come in many ways, but it starts for Team USA in the team final.
Three years ago in Tokyo, Simone Biles withdrew from the competition with the “twisties” – a phenomenon where a gymnast experiences a disconnect between their mind and body and gets lost in the air.
Biles opened up about her Tokyo experience on the Call Her Daddy podcast, where she equated the “twisties” to forgetting how to drive a car you’ve driven every day.
“It’s terrifying because … I am my car,” Biles said.
Back in Tokyo, the American team, which was favored to win gold, ended up going home with the silver behind the Russian Olympic Committee. The Olympic team gold medal streak that began in 2012 had been officially broken.
Many assumed Tokyo would be Biles’ final Games, but after a two-year break from the sport, Biles is back and better than ever.
She’s now 27 years old, married to Chicago Bears safety Jonathan Owens, and is placing her mental health at the forefront.
“I have to take care of myself a little bit more, and listen to my body and make sure that I’m making time for the important things in my life,” Biles said. “Whereas before it was all ‘Go, go, go,’ (and) making time after.”
Biles comes to Paris with two of her teammates from Tokyo – defending Olympic all-around champion Suni Lee and her Texas training mate Jordan Chiles.
Jade Carey, who competed in Tokyo as an individual, also returns. Those four are joined by Hezly Rivera, who at age 16 is the youngest member of the U.S. delegation across any sport.
Once the U.S. team was pieced together following the U.S. Olympic Team Trials, the words “redemption tour” quickly emerged.
“This is definitely our redemption tour,” Biles said. “I feel like we all have more to give and our Tokyo performances weren’t the best. We weren’t under the best circumstances either … But for us I know we’re stronger than what we showed in Tokyo.”
The first stop on the “redemption tour” was the qualification day, where the U.S. qualified to the team final with a commanding lead of over five points. However, the competition wasn’t necessarily smooth sailing.
Biles started the competition on the balance beam, where she performed a routine good enough to secure her spot in the event final in second place. Then, while warming up for the floor exercise in the next rotation, Biles felt a tweak in her calf.
She was evaluated by medical staff, who wrapped her lower leg. She then continued the competition while favoring her left leg.
Despite the pain, the thought of pulling out of the competition never crossed Biles’ mind according to her coach Cecile Landi, who said Biles began to feel better as the meet progressed.
Biles ended the day in first place all-around with a 59.566, which is the highest score put up by any gymnast at an international competition this Olympic cycle. Biles qualified for the vault and floor final in first, and the beam final in second.
That news bodes extremely well for Team USA’s chances to grab the gold, as Biles’ contributions to the team provide a score boost that is impossible to replace.
The Americans can increase their score further and lock in the gold medal with improvements from Carey, who revealed after the competition that she was not feeling well. As a result, Carey had several uncharacteristic mistakes on the floor — an event where she is the reigning Olympic champion — and finished with a score of 10.633.
A repeat of qualifications, combined with a typical performance for Carey and tidying up a few wobbles in the beam rotation can make the U.S. team untouchable.
Although the gap between first and second is quite large (5.435 points to be exact), the distance between the teams ranked second through fourth after qualifications is a matter of tenths.
Team finals will begin with a blank slate, meaning no scores carry over. However, contrary to qualifications where each team is allowed to drop a score – in the team final three gymnasts will compete in each event for every team and all three scores will count. Two medals are seemingly up for grabs for any team that wants to rise to the occasion.
Expect a tight battle between Italy, China and Brazil.
Italy was consistent in the qualifying round, led by Alice D’Amato. Consistency is exactly what the Italians will need in a three-up-three-count scenario if the team wants to bring home an Olympic medal for the first time since winning silver in 1928.
China is a powerhouse on uneven bars and balance beam but weaker on vault and floor exercise. The Chinese, who haven’t won a team medal at the Games since 2016, will start the competition on its best events, perhaps giving a glimpse into its medal prospects early on.
Brazil, on the other hand, is strong on vault and floor, where the team is led by Rebeca Andrade. The Brazilians have never won an Olympic team medal but come to Paris as the silver medalists from the World Championships in 2023.
The women’s gymnastics team final will take place Tuesday, July 30. The event will stream live on Peacockand NBCOlympics.com starting at 12:15 a.m. ET. The event will air in primetime on NBC at 8 p.m. ET.
What apparatus will each team start on?
The United States and Italy will start on vault, China and Brazil will start on the uneven bars, Japan and Canada will start on the balance beam, and Great Britain and Romania will start on the floor exercise.
Who will compete in the lineup for Team USA during the team final?
Vault: Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey, Simone Biles Uneven Bars: Jordan Chiles, Simone Biles, Suni Lee Balance Beam: Jordan Chiles, Suni Lee, Simone Biles Floor Exercise: Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Simone Biles
What were the highest scores from qualifications?
The United States’ Simone Biles posted the highest all-around score (59.566), in addition to the highest score on vault (15.300) and floor exercise (14.600)
Algeria’s Kaylia Nemour posted the highest score on the uneven bars (15.600).
China’s Zhou Yaqin posted the highest score on the balance beam (14.866).
