Simone Biles is unbeatable again. At the World Championships in Antwerp she wins title number 21. The German gymnasts Sarah Voss and Pauline Schäfer-Betz fail.
At another gala by Simone Biles with her 21st World Championship gold, the German gymnasts Sarah Voss and Pauline Schäfer-Betz did not achieve a top place in the all-around competition after falling.
Voss from Cologne had to dismount twice from the uneven bars at the World Championships in Antwerp on Friday and came 22nd with 50.799 points. Schäfer-Betz (Chemnitz), who had already qualified for the Olympic Games in Paris, took 24th and last place after falling from the gymnastics area on the floor with 49.932 points.
Biles does without a new element
US superstar Biles won the title in the four-event competition consisting of floor, balance beam, vault and uneven bars with 58.399 points. As in the team all-around competition, the 26-year-old forgo her “Biles II” jump, which she had presented internationally for the first time in the qualification.
However, gymnast Biles didn’t assert herself quite as effortlessly as she did with her four all-around titles before her two-year break from competition. After the first round, Kaylia Nemour from Algeria was even ahead before the 1.42 meter short exceptional athlete took the lead.
Rebecca Andrade from Brazil won the silver medal with 56.766 points. Third place went to Shilese Jones from the USA (56.332).
After her triumph, Biles thanked the team. With her 34th World Cup medal, the three-time world athlete moved past Vitaly Scherbo (Belarus), who was on the podium 33 times at world championships between 1991 and 1996.
Schäfer-Betz knocked off after a fall
Sarah Voss got off to a rock-solid start and was on course for the top ten in ninth place after her exercises on the floor and in the vault. But then, after a mistake and a fall, she had to involuntarily come off the uneven bars twice and thus lost all chances of a top placement.
The same thing had happened before to Schäfer-Betz, who fell off the gymnastics surface at the end of an acrobatic track and fell back to last place.
Schäfer-Betz starts on the uneven bars on Sunday
In the following exercises on vault and uneven bars, the 26-year-old was no longer able to make up for the deficit. At the dress rehearsal for her start in the balance beam final on Sunday, she received the seventh highest score with 13.566 points.
Schäfer-Betz was disappointed after the competition. “It didn’t work today”said the athlete. “I lost my bearings a bit on the ground.”