TOKYO —Simone Biles, who was scratched from the women’s team competition and withdrew from the all-around event final after losing her ability to sense where she is in the air, withdrew from the event finals in the vault and uneven bars, which will be contested on Sunday.

USA Gymnastics, the sport’s governing body in the United States, said in a statement released late Friday that Biles made the decision to withdraw from the vault and uneven bars finals “after further consultation with medical staff.”

MyKayla Skinner will replace Biles and will join Jade Carey in the vault final. Skinner had the fourth-best vault score in qualifying but didn’t reach the final automatically because of a rule that limits each country to a maximum of two representatives in any event final. The U.S. will not be granted a replacement for Biles on the uneven bars because no other U.S. woman scored high enough to earn a replacement spot.

Biles qualified for the floor exercise final on Monday and the balance beam final on Tuesday, and USA Gymnastics said she will continue to be evaluated daily.

Gold for Dressel, Ledecky

Caeleb Dressel added another gold medal to his haul at the Summer Games, cruising to victory in the 100-meter butterfly with a world-record time. Earlier this week, Dressel won the 100 freestyle and helped the 4x100 freestyle relay to gold.

Dressel finished in 49.45 seconds, breaking the record he set in 2019 by five-hundredths of a second.

Katie Ledecky closed her Olympics with a win, taking gold in the 800 freestyle. She finishes with two gold and two silver medals.

Women’s soccer escapes

Megan Rapinoe converted the deciding penalty in a shootout and the United States advanced to the semifinals of the women’s Olympic soccer tournament 4-2 after a 2-2 draw with the Netherlands.

United States goalkeeper Alyssa Naeher stopped Vivianne Meidema’s opening attempt in the shootout. She then saved a shot from Aniek Nouwen before Rapinoe put her penalty away.

The United States next will face Canada, which advanced to the semifinals 4-3 on penalties after a scoreless draw with Brazil in Rifu.

Swimming record

The Tokyo Games got its first swimming individual world record when Tatjana Schoenmaker of South Africa won the women’s 200-meter breaststroke with a time of 2 minutes, 18.95 seconds.

The United States claimed the other two medals. Lilly King set a blistering pace early in the race and held on for a silver in 2:19.92. Annie Lazor grabbed bronze in 2:20.84.

Russian Evgeny Rylov has completed a backstroke sweep at the Tokyo Olympics. Rylov added the 200 backstroke title to his victory in the 100 back, winning with an Olympic-record time of 1 minute, 53.29 seconds.

The silver went to American Ryan Murphy in 1:54.15, while Luke Greenbank of Britain grabbed the bronze in 1:54.72.

No golden slam

The top-ranked Novak Djokovic lost to Alexander Zverev of Germany, 1-6, 3-6, 6-1, in the semifinals of the tennis tournament. Zverev’s opponent in the gold-medal match will be Karen Khachanov of the Russian Olympic Committee.

Djokovic was attempting to become the first man to win all four Grand Slam tournaments and Olympic gold in the same year.

Track gold

Selemon Barega of Ethiopia won the first track and field gold medal of the Olympics with a victory in the men’s 10,000 meters.

Barega won in 27 minutes, 43.22 seconds to upset world champion and world-record holder Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda. Cheptegei took the silver medal, and Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda was third.

Streaking

A’ja Wilson scored 20 points, and Breanna Stewart added 15 to help the U.S. beat Japan, 86-69, in the women’s basketball tournament.

The U.S. has now won 51 consecutive games going back to the bronze medal game in the 1992 Olympics.

Streak stopped

Canada’s rowing team ended the U.S. run of three consecutive gold medals in the women’s eight.

Canada toppled the Americans with a commanding start-to-finish win ahead of New Zealand and China. The U.S. boat found itself dropped by the leaders early in the race and was never in medal contention.

Water polo record

U.S. women’s water polo captain Maggie Steffens broke the Olympic scoring record when she connected in the third period against the ROC.

Steffens was all alone in front for her 48th career goal in the Olympics. The 28-year-old Steffens is going for her third consecutive gold medal.

Just beachy

Americans April Ross and Alix Klineman moved on to the beach volleyball knockout round.

Starting in a drizzle and finishing in a downpour, the No. 2 seeded Americans lost the opening set of the match to the Netherlands, 22-20. They trailed 12-9 in the second before scoring four straight points and seven of the next eight to make it 21-17. In the tiebreaking set, they pulled away to beat the winless Dutch pair.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)