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Russia wins gold in women's gymnastics, U.S. takes silver after Biles withdraws

27 July 2021
Dan Ackermann

The Russian Olympic Committee is taking home a gold medal in women's gymnastics after U.S. star Simone Biles pulled out of the team finals on Tuesday due to a medical issue.

State of play: The Russian gymnasts finished with a total score of 169.528, ahead of the U.S. in second place at 166.096. The gold medal won Tuesday is the first for the Russian team since the Unified Team won in Barcelona in 1992, AP notes.

  • The Russian Olympic Committee is now up by eight-tenths of a point as both teams head to floor exercise.
  • The last time Team USA lost a team final in the Olympics or world championships was in 2010, to Russia, the New York Times notes.

Driving the news: Biles left the competition area Tuesday with a medical examiner after one rotation on the vault in which she faltered. She was replaced by Jordan Chiles and returned to the floor to cheer on her teammates.

What she's saying: "For me, I'm proud for how the girls stepped up and did what they had to do. I owe this to the girls, it has nothing to do with me. I am very proud of them," Biles told reporters Tuesday.

  • "I said: 'you have done all the training, you can do this without me, and it will be just fine," Biles told Team USA when she withdrew from the rest of the women's team final after the first event.

Worth noting: Russian athletes are competing under the Olympic flag and not their own due to a doping ban.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

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Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.