Rio de Janeiro
Dominant. Peerless. Golden.
The U.S. women’s gymnastics team gave retiring national team coordinator Martha Karolyi a fitting send off in the Olympic finals on Tuesday night, putting on a two-hour display of precision and class. Their score of 184.897 was more than eight points points clear of silver medalist Russia, a blowout that Michael Jordan’s “Dream Team” should envy.
The night included two more gold medals for U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps, including a redemption win in the 200-meter butterfly. Tennis star Serena Williams didn’t fare as well, making her exit from the Olympic singles tournament.
The Americans’ second straight Olympic team gymnastics triumph — and third overall — was never in doubt. From the second Laurie Hernandez drilled her opening vault to Simone Biles’ boundary-pushing floor exercise to end it, the U.S. put on an exhibition that showed how far the divide between themselves and everyone else has become.
It’s a gap that Karolyi created from scratch since taking over for husband Bela in 2001. She’s molded the U.S. program into a ponytailed juggernaut. The 73-year-old is stepping down after the games. Watching from the front row of the Rio Olympic Arena in a red jumpsuit, Karolyi watched perhaps her greatest team seem totally immune to the pressure.
Maybe that’s because for Hernandez, Biles, Gabby Douglas, Madison Kocian and Aly Raisman, the meets are the fun part of their jobs. The toughest competitions happen in quiet at the regular training camps Karolyi carefully oversees. When the lights come on, it’s time to let loose.
Biles admitted there were nerves before Sunday’s preliminaries, though it hardly looked like it while the Americans posted the highest score by more than nine points. The only moment of tension on Tuesday came early. When Hernandez was introduced to the crowd, Raisman nudged her and told her to wave, which the 16-year-old did with a toothy smile.
Barely five minutes later, the youngest member of Team USA was all business. Her double-twisting Yurchenko — basically a roundoff into a pair of twists — put the machine in motion. Raisman, who won three medals in London four years ago and seemed to be on the outside looking in as recently as this spring, followed with perhaps the finest vault of her long career. When Biles drilled her Amanar and put up a 15.933 — the highest of the night — the U.S. was already on top of the leaderboard.
The butterfly was the one Phelps really wanted, and it showed.
After touching the wall first — barely — he held up one finger. Then he sat on a lane rope, egging on the roaring crowd at the Olympic Aquatics Center with both hands, before emphatically pumping his fist in the direction of his fiancee and their infant son. Being the 20th gold of his career only added to the satisfaction.
Making up for one of the few losses in his staggering career, Phelps held off Japan’s Masato Sakai by a mere four-hundredths of a second. The winning time was 1 minute, 53.36 seconds, but that was of little concern. The only thing that mattered was getting to the wall first.
Four years ago, Phelps mistimed his finish in the swooping stroke he does better than anyone, gliding to the wall a little too long after his final stroke. That allowed South Africa’s Chad le Clos to stunningly win gold in an event that Phelps had dominated for the better part of a decade.
Phelps retired after the London Games, so it looked like he wouldn’t get a chance to make up for his defeat. But when he decided about a year later to start competing again, the 200 fly was clearly the title he wanted more than any other.
Phelps later Tuesday added a 21st gold as part of the 4×200 freestyle relay team.
In what was shaping up to be another very good night for the Americans, Katie Ledecky held off Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom to win the 200 freestyle and give the American star her second gold of the Rio Games.
Williams wasn’t nearly as amused. The top-seeded American looked out of sorts and irritated, shanking shots from side to side. Williams had five double-faults in one game alone in the 6-4, 6-3 loss to the 20th-ranked Svitolina.
Williams wiped her forehead, picked up her rackets and headed back quickly to the locker room. Svitolina, who had never before played in an Olympics, smiled and stuck her arms out in front of her, palms up, as if waking up from a dream.
Svitolina had won 63 points, but just nine from clean winners.
Other highlights from Day 4 at the Rio Games:
Medal Stripped: A Ukrainian javelin thrower was stripped of his silver medal from the 2012 London Olympics, becoming the latest athlete disqualified after the retesting of stored doping samples. Oleksandr Pyatnytsya tested positive for the steroid turinabol and was retroactively disqualified from the London Games and ordered to return his medal, the International Olympic Committee said.
Grieving Coach Leads U.S.: Adam Krikorian returned to the pool deck for his first game since his brother’s sudden death last week to coach the U.S. to an 11-4 win over Spain in water polo. Maggie Steffens, Courtney Mathewson and Kiley Neushul scored two goals apiece, and Ashleigh Johnson had 11 saves while becoming the first black woman to play water polo for the U.S. in the Olympics.
Judo History: Hungarian-born Szandra Szogedi made history when she stepped onto the judo mat to become the first judoka to represent Ghana — she obtained citizenship through her husband. But facing Brazilian Mariana Silva in the first round, Szogedi had to deal with a crowd shouting support for her opponent. After less than two minutes, the fight was over: Silva took Szogedi down and caught her in a stranglehold. Afterward, a tearful Szogedi said she was “gutted.”
Pele Improving: Pele tweeted that he hopes to appear at the closing ceremony after missing the opening because of his health. The soccer great was the organizers’ preferred choice to light the cauldron, but first cited sponsorship commitments and later health concerns for staying away.
World-Record Lift: Deng Wei won Olympic gold and set a world record in women’s weightlifting, hoisting 147 kilograms in the clean and jerk and 115 in the snatch for a total of 262. Her clean and jerk lift also broke her world record by 1 kilogram.