TOKYO – On the second-greatest day in Arizona gymnastics history, 25 years after the first, MyKayla Skinner won a silver medal Sunday in Olympic women’s vaulting. Skinner, who found out for sure Saturday that she was replacing Simone Biles in the eight-woman final, hit two solid vaults at Ariake Gymnastics Centre to finish second behind Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade, the all-around silver medalist. She is only the fifth American to medal on vault, a list including Biles, the gold medalist in 2016. A quarter-century earlier, before 24-year-old Skinner was born, Arizonan Kerri Strug vaulted to fame at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics on a badly injured ankle to help the U. S. clinch a team gold medal. Biles dropped out of the team and all-around finals and now has withdrawn from at least three events finals because of mental-health reasons as she deals with the "twisties." That put Skinner into the vault final one week after she finished fourth in qualifying but was left out because of a rule limiting one country to two finalists. Biles and Jade Carey were first and second in qualifying.“I was going to get on a plane to go home,” Skinner said. “I wasn’t expecting any of this to happen.”But after team finals, Biles, realizing she might not be able to continue, asked team officials to text Skinner about staying in Japan if needed.“It’s been kind of hard to get my mindset back into the game,” Skinner said. “I was thinking I’m done, I’m ready to move on. After prelims, it took me two days to be like, 'OK, I’m good, I’ve got this, I did my best.' ”Vaulting first, Skinner was solid on her Cheng and Amanar vaults, putting up an average of 14.916 for the rest of the field to try to beat. Andrade, competing third, did so at 15.083. But Carey, also from Arizona, tripped on the run-up during her first vault and was unable to execute her Cheng vault, trying instead to salvage a Yurchenko, scoring only 11.933. Visibly shaken, Carey still managed to complete an Amana vault that would have scored 14.900 if not for a two-point deduction for being in the same family of vaults as the Yurchenko.“It was just a fluke thing,” Skinner said. “As she was running, I saw her trip right before the roundoff. She couldn’t continue the vault because she could have gotten hurt.“She was so disappointed. We should have both been on the podium. I was trying to help her stay positive, you have to forget about this. You have more finals, you’re going to give it your all and place. She totally can. She made me cry because that’s so horrible to have to go through something like that when you’ve made it this far. I know she’s very devastated right now.”Carey will compete again Monday in the floor exercise final, where she could potentially try to make gymnastics history by becoming the first woman to complete a triple-double layout at an Olympics or World Championships.
All data is taken from the source: http://usatoday.com
Article Link: https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/2021/08/01/2021-tokyo-olympics-us-gymnast-mykayla-skinner-wins-silver-vault/5446728001/
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