Arizona’s MyKayla Skinner earns first Olympic medal after Simone Biles’ withdrawal
Wins silver in Women's Vault Finals
TOKYO, Japan (KYMA, KECY/NBC Sports) - Friday evening, Arizona native MyKalya Skinner let her 49K followers know on Twitter that she was more than eager to take the place of Simone Biles in the Women's Vault Finals.
During the qualification round of the women's artistic gymnastics competition, Skinner scoured in fourth place right behind Biles, just ahead of Jade Carey whom is also a native to Arizona. However, her an Olympic rule limiting two two gymnast per country to advance to event finals left Skinner out.
Looks like I get to put a competition Leo on just one more time. Can’t wait to compete in vault finals. Doing this for us @Simone_Biles ❤️ It’s go time baby!
— MyKayla Skinner (Harmer) (@mykaylaskinner) July 31, 2021
That all changed once Biles pulled out of the competition due to mental health issues. Sunday morning, Skinner literally vaulted right in, winning a silver, her first Olympic medal.
She scored a 15.033 on her first vault, a Cheng; then earned a 14.800 on her second vault, an Amanar. Her average of 14.916 was only 0.167 less than gold-medal winner Rebeca Andrade of Brazil.
Carey unfortunately had an "uncharacteristic error" stumbling a bit on her run up to the first vault. Though her performance on the second vault was much better, the combined average placed her eighth among the competition.
