PARIS, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Simone Biles capped the night with a brilliant floor routine that met with resounding cheers from a Bercy Arena.
The U.S. put up a dominant performance to pocket the women's gymnastics team gold on Tuesday for their fourth Olympic title. They had won the event in 1996, 2012, 2016.
The American women posted a team total of 171.296 points across the four apparatuses, finishing 5.802 ahead of Italy, who made history by winning a silver medal. Italy came fourth in Tokyo and a silver medal in 1928 was their previous best finish at the Olympics.
Brazil used great floor and vault performances to hold off Great Britain, who had finished third in Tokyo, and took the bronze with 164.497. Brazil won a team silver at last year's world championships but had never finished higher than eighth at the Olympics.
China failed to deliver on their strong apparatus with a error-strewn balance beam performance by Zhou Yaqin, the world silver medalist, resulting in a sixth place finish, one spot higher than that of the Tokyo Olympics. China took the bronze at Rio 2016.
It was Biles' fifth Olympic gold medal, and her eighth medal overall. She will go level with the Czech Republic's legendary Vera Caslavska for the second-most decorated gymnast of all time if she captures three more medals in the all-around and individual apparatuses.
"I think we all had something to prove from Tokyo and tonight we did just that," Biles said. "This was our goal going in, even though we didn't share it with everybody because it's just a personal thing that we were working on. And we're super excited to walk away with that gold medal."
Her teammate Sunisa Lee, the Tokyo all-around gold medalist, added one more gold to her Olympic medal haul, including a bronze on uneven bars and a team silver. She is set to defend her all-around title against Biles and Rebeca Andrade of Brazil on Thursday.
Biles started the evening with a superb Cheng vault, a performance with good execution that recorded a massive 14.900 points. Together with Jade Carey' 14.800, team USA established a small lead.
From there, the American gymnasts built up a run-away advantage through Lee's 14.600 on the balance beam and Jordan Chiles' consistent performance on the uneven bars.
