American Gabby Douglas Wins Gold in Women’s Gymnastics All-Around
American Gabby Douglas took home the gold medal in the women’s gymnastics all-around competition at the London Olympics today, the Wall Street Journal reports. It’s the second gold for the 16-year-old Virginia native, who on Monday helped the U.S. women’s gymnastics squad take home their first gold medal in the team competition since 1996.
Douglas is the first African-American Olympic champion in all-around gymnastics, and also the third U.S. gymnast in a row to take home the all-around gold medal; Nastia Liukin finished on top in Beijing in 2008 and Carly Patterson won in Athens in 2004.
Douglas’ teammate Aly Raisman finished with the same score as Russian Aliya Mustafina, but did not medal after Mustafina won bronze on the execution score tiebreaker. The silver medal went to Russia’s Viktoria Komova.
With a total score of 62.232, Douglas secured her victory after scoring an impressive 15.033 during her floor routine, while netting a 15.5 for her performance on the balance beam right before.
Elsewhere in the Olympics, Michael Phelps became the most decorated Olympian of all time yesterday, nabbing his record-setting 19th medal after he helped the U.S. men’s relay team take home the gold in the 4×200 relay. The previous record was held by Cold War-era Russian gymnast Larissa Latynina.