For anyone who’s waiting until the Games air in primetime Thursday night: Caution ahead! This article contains spoilers.
But if you’re following the Tokyo Summer Olympics on our app, ESPN or most other social media sources, you likely already realize that we have a new women’s all-around champ -- and her photo is at the bottom of this article.
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With the news earlier this week that Simone Biles had pulled herself from the gymnastics competition over mental health concerns, that left a new vacancy atop the U.S. women’s squad: Could the Americans defend their crown? A U.S. gymnast has won the all-around competition every Olympics since 2004.
So, who are those women?
We thought we’d take a look. Here are the American gold medalists of years past:
1984, Los Angeles: Mary Lou Retton
2004, Athens: Carly Patterson
2008, Beijing: Nastia Liukin
2012, London: Gabby Douglas
2016, Rio de Janeiro: Simone Biles
2020ne, Tokyo: Sunisa Lee
Incredible job by Suni!
Lee became the fifth straight American woman to claim the Olympic title on Thursday, edging Rebeca Andrade of Brazil in an entertaining and hotly contested final while defending champion Biles watched from the stands.
Lee’s total of 57.433 points was just enough to top Andrade, who earned the first gymnastics all-around medal by a Latin American athlete but missed out on gold when she stepped out of bounds twice during her floor routine. Russian gymnast Angelina Melnikova earned bronze two days after leading ROC to gold in the team final.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.