Biles dazzles on floor to clinch record 25th World C’ship medal

Stuttgart: US gymnastics queen Simone Biles won her fourth gold at the world championships in the women’s beam final on Sunday to set a new all-time record of 24 worlds medals.

Biles won five gold medals this week. If she can repeat that at next year’s Olympics it would be a feat no female gymnast has managed at a single Games.

But for Biles, it’s not about the statistics.

“I can’t be more thrilled with the performance that I put out at this world championships,” she said. The medal record? “I’m not a number person.”

The 22-year-old also extended her own record of 18 worlds golds after success earlier this week in the team, all-round and vault events with the USA team in Stuttgart.

China’s Liu Tingting, 19, took silver on the beam with 16-year-old team-mate Li Shijia earning bronze.

Biles is an hero to younger gymnasts who grew up watching her routines.

“I’m second in the world after Simone Biles, and she’s obviously so amazing. And to be second is super crazy,” said Shijia.

“I don’t know how she’s been doing this for so long.”

Her victory on the beam makes Biles the most decorated gymnast in history, bettering the previous all-time record of 23 world medals won by men’s star Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus in the 1990s.

Biles can yet add to her dazzling record, and finish these championships in Stuttgart with five golds, as the favourite to win the women’s floor final.

The only blot on Biles’ near-perfect record so far in Stuggart came in Saturday’s uneven bars final when she finished fifth.

Earlier, Russia’s Nikita Nagornyy won the men’s vault for his third gold medal of the championships. He’s the first European man to win the vault since 2010.

Nagornyy scored an average 14.966 from his two vaults, beating his friend and Russian teammate Artur Dalaloyan into second place. The bronze went to Ukraine’s Igor Radivilov.

The 38-year-old Romanian Marian Dragulescu, a four-time world champion, secured qualification for his fifth Olympics by placing fourth.

Britain won its second gold of the championships as Joe Fraser scored 15 points to win on parallel bars. Ahmet Önder was second for Turkey, with Japan’s Kazuma Kaya third. Max Whitlock won Britain’s first gold medal Saturday on pommel horse.

Arthur Mariano won gold for Brazil on the high bar, scoring 14.9 ahead of Tin Srbic for Croatia. Dalaloyan took the bronze to end the championships with four medals.

Agencies