RIO DE JANEIRO _ Three down ... two to go.
U.S. gymnast Simone Biles captured her third gold medal of the Olympics, crushing the field in the women's vault on Sunday at the Rio Olympic Arena.
Biles owned the vault. Now she's owning the podium.
In the vault final, gymnasts vault twice and the scores are averaged. Biles scored 15.900 on her first _ an Amanar _ with a short hop back. She spoke briefly with her personal coach, Aimee Boorman, between vaults and came back with an even better showing on her second one, the Cheng, and scored 16.033.
Biles is the first U.S. woman to win the Olympics on vault and the first to win three Olympic golds in a single Games in gymnastics.
The average of her two vaults was 15.966.
The silver went to Maria Paseka of Russia (15.253) and the bronze to Giulia Steingruber of Switzerland (15.216). Of note, a 41-year-old took part in the vault final, Oksana Chusovitina of Uzbekistan, who was competing in her seventh Olympics.
