American gymnast Skye Blakely’s long road to the top ends with gold at the world championships

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — American Skye Blakely soared to the women’s all-around gold at the world gymnastics championships on Friday, putting together four stellar routines as other top competitors faltered.

The 21-year-old’s total of 55.733 included a dazzling set on uneven bars and a stoic and steady performance on balance beam and no major form breaks or falls, giving the Dallas native a moment of redemption after bids to make the 2020 and 2024 U.S. Olympic teams ended due to injury.

Blakely broke into tears when she walked off the podium at the end of her floor exercise in the final rotation, her long and painful journey with an unforgiving sport hitting a high note that seemed far away during lengthy rehabs that taxed both her mind and her body.

Liudmila Roschina earned silver at 55.199. Ke Qinqin of China took bronze at 55.032.

Algerian Kaylia Nemour’s bid to become the first gymnast from Africa to win an all-around title at worlds ended with a fourth-place finish. The 19-year-old’s finals got off to a rough start in her first rotation when her feet didn’t land squarely on the springboard while vaulting, forcing her to do a simpler vault that cost her valuable points.

While Nemour recovered spectacularly thanks in large part to an uneven bars routine that is one of the hardest routines done on any apparatus by any gymnast — male or female — in the world, it wasn’t quite enough to reach the podium.

American Claire Pease’s hopes of joining Blakely on the medal stand ended when she hopped off beam on her way to a seventh-place finish.

Blakely and Pease were competing two days after the U.S. saw its long run of gold medals in the team finals at worlds end with a second-place finish to resurgent China. That up-and-down night included Blakely failing to get credit for a connection during her beam routine that cost the Americans nearly a point in a meet where they missed out on gold by a fraction of that.

There were no such issues this time around. Blakely headed to beam atop the leaderboard after an excellent start on vault followed by a bars routine that’s pretty good in its own right.

Still, beam is something different. And this time there were no missed connections and barely a wobble. Her score of 14.200 kept her in front and turned her floor exercise largely into a victory lap.

The tears after she saluted the judges were real. So were the ones when her spot atop the sport became official about 15 minutes later.

Blakely then draped the American flag over her back while posing for the cameras becoming the ninth U.S. woman — and sixth this century — to win a world all-around crown.

While the picture figures to get considerably more crowded in the next two years ahead of the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, Blakely’s perseverance and talent have thrust her back into the conversation.

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