Britain's Whitlock wins two gymnastics golds in one day at Rio Olympics (updated)
Xinhua, August 15, 2016 Adjust font size:
Max Whitlock of Britain won both the men's floor exercise and pommel horse finals here on Sunday at the Rio Olympic Games.
Whitlock stood out of a strong squad including all-around winner Kohei Uchimura and world champion Kenzo Shirai, winning the floor title in 15.633 points. It's also the first Olympic gold in gymnastics for Britain.
Less than two hours later, the 23-year-old talent edged experienced teammate Louis Smith in the pommel horse final by a margin of 0.133 points with a result of 15.966 points.
"It's just an incredible feeling," said Whitlock, who had already got an all-around bronze medal in pocket on Wednesday. "All the gymnasts out there know how much work goes into it. You get one minute to show what you've been working on for the last however many years."
As the silver medalist of the floor exercise at last year's World Championships, Whitlock performed a stable routine while most of the other finalists struggled with flaws.
British duo Diego Hypolito and Arthur Mariano finished second and third in 15.533 and 15.433 points respectively.
World champion Shirai of Japan astonished the audience with the highest difficulty score of 7.6 points, but failed to perform the routine crisply with several awkward landings.
The 19-year-old team gold medalist finally ranked fourth, one place ahead of teammate Uchimura.
U.S. gymnast Alexander Naddour took the bronze medal in pommel horse with a score of 15.700 points.
In the women's vault final, the U.S. star gymnast Simone Biles met no challenge at all to clinch the title in 15.966 points, 0.713 points ahead of world champion Maria Paseka of Russia, who finished second in 15.253 points. Swiss Guilia Steingruber finished third in 15.216 points.
The 19-year-old Biles had already won the team and all-around gold medals and she could fight for more in the next two days as she also reached the finals of balance beam and floor exercise.
Oksana Chusovitina from Uzbekistan finished her seventh Games with a seventh place in the women' s vault.
The 41-year-old said she was still enjoying the competition and she's even looking forward to the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Besides, Aliya Mustafina of Russia defended her Olympic title in the women's uneven bars with a score of 15.900 points, bringing the first gymnastics gold for Russia at the Rio Olympic Games.
World champion Madison Kocian from the United States ranked second in 15.833 points while German Sophie Scheder finished third in 15.566 points. Enditem