Final Five sheds no tears in their dominant Olympic gymnastics victory

There may not be crying in baseball, to steal a line from A League of Their Own, but there is always crying in women’s gymnastics. Which is why the only surprise of the team competition came when the “Final Five” — as they call themselves — shed no tears over claiming the gold medal.

“I think everyone’s a little bit older,” Gabby Douglas, 20, said. “But we’re also excited. I don’t think we could cry. I mean, I don’t have waterproof mascara on. I’d burn my eyes.”

Their victory was so expected, their domination so complete that tears would have appeared disingenuous.

Texans Simone Biles and Madison Kocian joined Douglas, Laurie Hernandez and Aly Raisman in making history. They led by .700 after the first rotation, 4.02 after two and 4.092 after three.

It was all but over even before three-time world champion Biles started her floor routine, the last performance of the night.

“I knew that even if something did happen that we would kind of be OK, and that’s always reassuring,” said Biles, who carried the title of “greatest gymnast ever” into Tuesday before her first career gold medal.

The only drama was the margin of the Americans’ victory.

Biles’ exclamation point came with a 15.800 on her floor exercise, a performance national team coordinator Marta Karolyi called “the best tumbling work” she had ever seen, and the Final Five celebrated. Team USA finished with a total of 184.897, steamrolling Russia (176.688), China (176.003) and the rest of the field.

It marked the most lopsided women’s gymnastics team victory since the Rome Games in 1960 when the Soviet Union scored 382.320 points to 373.323 for Czechoslovakia under a different scoring system.

“We go in there and we just train so hard, so coming in here today we just expected to do what we’ve been doing in the workout, and we knew that if we could just do what we’ve been doing at workouts then we would have a good outcome,” Hernandez, 16, said.

They make it seem all so simple. In their 28 rotations over two days, Team USA was near perfect.

“It is the hardest sport in the world, and we make it look so easy, is what people tell us,” said Biles, a Spring native.

The Americans are so good that 2012 Olympic all-around champion Douglas, who doesn’t get a chance to defend her title Thursday, performed only the uneven bars Tuesday.

“It says a lot about this team,” said Douglas, who scored a 15.766. “How we come together as one and our team unity is something that I think every team should have.”

It’s not hard to figure out why they have become America’s sweethearts.

“Because we’ve been so dominant lately,” said Dallas-native Kocian, who scored a personal-best 15.933 in her only event, the uneven bars.

It’s not bragging if you back it up.

Team USA won in London four years ago with Raisman and Douglas as part of the “Fierce Five.” In a group text message a few weeks ago, Biles named the 2016 team the “Final Five” to mark Karolyi’s retirement and the end of the five-woman team format in the Olympics.

Karolyi, 73, took over the program from her husband, Bela, in 2001. Together, the Karolyis have given the U.S. 89 world or Olympic medals with many more to come this Olympics.

“It’s the result of putting into place a training system that starts with the selection of very young athletes and putting them in organized training camps at the training center, starting with top programs then to development and then to senior,” Marta Karolyi said.

When the butt kicking was done Tuesday, Team USA gathered arm-in-arm in a circle and broke their huddle with a chant of “Final Five.” It let the whole world in on their nickname.

On the podium, as the national anthem played and the American flag rose, the Final Five’s smiles were wide and their necks heavy, but their eyes were dry.

This story was originally published August 9, 2016 at 11:20 PM with the headline "Final Five sheds no tears in their dominant Olympic gymnastics victory."