Gift Of Gabby: American Douglas Wins Gold In Women’s All-Around

You’ve probably seen this photo of Gabby Douglas by now. It’s an absolutely incredible shot of the women’s all-around gold medalist in mid-air during her balance beam performance on Thursday. But there’s a couple more great shots that also deserve your attention.

From Thursday night:

After playing an integral part in the U.S. winning gold in the women’s team gymnastics competition on Tuesday, Gabby Douglas once again put on a show on Thursday to win the gold in the women’s individual all-around. She is the third-straight American woman to win the event, coming on the heels of Carly Patterson in 2004 and Nastia Liukin in 2008. It’s just the second time any country has pulled off a three-peat.

It was an incredible performance by Douglas, who led after every rotation to best Russia’s Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina with a total of 62.232 points. Komova needed to score a 15.360 on the floor exercise, her final rotation, but came up short with a 15.100.

Gabby Douglas’ gold medal in the women’s all-around will leave American fans with a warm fuzzy from the gymnastics competition on Thursday, but the fact that Aly Raisman is missing out on a bronze medal despite tying with Aliya Mustafina in the competition is sure to leave a sour taste in the mouths of many Americans.

Raisman and Mustafina both tied at 59.566 points in the event after their four rotations, and in the case of a tie for a medal placement, there is a tiebreaker procedure. Important parts are in bold.

Gabby Douglas executed everything she needed to on Thursday in the women’s all-around gymnastics competition at the 2012 Olympics, and earned her second gold medal in three days for her efforts. She made a bit of Olympic history in the process, too.

Douglas led after every rotation and held off Russia’s Viktoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina with strong performances on the balance beam (15.500, best on the apparatus) and floor exercise (15.033, just .033 off her best mark of the Games) to win the all-around gold with 62.232 points, becoming the third straight American gymnast to do so, following Carly Patterson in 2004 and Nastia Liukin in 2008.

Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman led the U.S. women’s gymnastics team to gold on Tuesday, and through two rotations of the women’s all-around competition on Thursday, it’s likely gold is within both Americans’ grasp.

Both Douglas and Raisman began on the vault and stuck difficult jumps, ending up with the two best scores after the first rotation. Douglas’ 15.966 looked to be hard for any gymnast to beat on any apparatus, while Raisman’s 15.900 looked to be as close as anyone else can get.

The women’s gymnastics individual all-around final competition will take place today, Thursday. That’s “today”, not “tonight”, when the day’s events will be shown on NBC.

Two members of the Fab Five that won gold for the United States the other night will take part in the competition -- Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman. Many expected Jordan Wieber to participate -- she certainly did -- but her scores in the preliminaries weren’t high enough, leaving her out of the all-around competition.

With the women’s gymnastics team competition completed, the focus shifts to individual events and the finals of the all-around event to be held on Thursday.

After capturing gold on Tuesday, Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman -- members of the new Fab Five United States women’s gymnastics team -- will compete for their own medal.