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Rio Olympics: Golden finale for Simone Biles, China flops

The United States ended the final day of competition with 12 medals, their best showing at a single Olympics

Simone Biles

Simone Biles

AFPPTI Rio de Janeiro
US star Simone Biles got the golden finale she craved in Rio with a fourth women's crown but former gymnastics power China leave the Games without a title for the first time in 32 years.

The 19-year-old Biles wrapped up ten days of incredible gymnastics with her trademark dominant display of acrobatics and tumbling on the floor in the Rio Olympic Arena.

The 1.45m (4ft 9ins) gymnast from Texas got the crowd behind her with her Samba routine to lead a US 1-2 ahead of Aly Raisman.

The three-time world floor champion scored 15.966 points with 2012 Olympic floor champion Raisman taking silver with 15.500.
 
Britain's Amy Tinkler (14.933) won bronze.
But it was a bittersweet finale for the tiny American, a day after her record push for five gold at one Olympics came off balance on the beam.

"I just wanted to end on a good note," said Biles. "It was nerve wracking but there was no room for nerves.

"It's been an amazing experience. To think of what I've won I couldn't have asked for more.

"I'm walking away from my first Olympics with five medals and four in gold, how can I be disappointed?"

A wobble on the beam on Monday handed Biles her first defeat on the apparatus in a finals since 2013. She took bronze.

She becomes the fifth woman to win four gold at the same Olympics joining Hungarian Agnes Keleti (1956), Soviet Larissa Latynina (1956), Czech Vera Caslavska (1968) and Romanian Ecaterina Szabo (1984).

Earlier Ukrainian gymnast Oleg Verniaiev won on the parallel bars as Germany's Fabian Hambuechen added the horizontal bar gold to his silver and bronze from London and Beijing.

Verniaiev, 22, the all-around silver medallist in Rio, led the way with 16.041, ahead of American Danell Leyva (15.900) with Russia's David Belyavskiy taking bronze (15.783).

Levya came out to take his second silver behind 28-year-old Hambuechen with Britain's Nile Wilson taking bronze (15.466).

Defending champion Epke Zonderland of the Netherlands tumbled off the bar to finish seventh in an eight-man field.

The United States ended the final day of competition with 12 medals, their best showing at a single Olympics.

But China slumped to their worst Games since taking a first gold in 1984.

Their last men's hopes were on the parallel bars -- Deng Shudi finished fourth and You Hao last after a fall on his dismount.

"I felt some pressure. I didn't get to sleep until 2 or 3 am. I just laid on my bed. I just don't know what happened. My brain is empty," said Deng, who won bronze with China in the men's team event in which the two-time champions lost their title to Japan.

Wang Yan finished fourth on the women's floor.

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First Published: Aug 17 2016 | 2:32 AM IST

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