ANGELINA MELNIKOVA

Angelina Melnikova, a 21-year-old gymnast who won team gold and two individual bronze medals at the Tokyo Olympics, posted photos from the festivities.

Angelina Melnikova of Russia won the women’s all-around final on Thursday to claim the first gold medal of the gymnastics world championships. Melnikova, the 2020 Olympic all-around bronze medalist, built up a solid lead with high scores on the vault and uneven bars and finished with 56.632 points. With defending champion Simone Biles and Tokyo Olympic gold medalist Sunisa Lee of the United States not taking part, the stage was set for a new generation of gymnasts to emerge.

American gymnast Jade Carey's long road to the Olympics ended with gold.

Without Simone Biles, U.S. women’s gymnastics seemed likely to end their gold-medal streak in the all-around competition. Instead, a new champion had her moment.

Sunisa Lee is an Olympic champion.

Lee came up big for Team USA after Simone Biles withdrew from the all-around competition.

American gymnast Simone Biles’ decision to withdraw from two key Olympics competitions to focus on her mental well-being changes the landscape somewhat dramatically for the U.S. gymnastics team in coming days.

Track and Field begins competition on Day 6 of the Tokyo Games and four medal events will be decided in the pool in Thursday's coverage of the Olympics.

Though the history books may mark Tuesday’s victory with an asterisk due to American star Simone Biles’ early withdrawal, the Russian women's gymnastics team's dazzling performance is the result of a concerted transformation since they finished a distant second to the American team at the 2019 World Championship.

For the first time in years, the U.S. women's gymnastics team has a fight on its hands at the Olympics.

The U.S. women's gymnastics team's bid for a third straight Olympic title is off to a rocky start.

Audience members cheer for Wataru Tanigawa of Japan as he competes in the rings during an international gymnastics meet in Tokyo on Sunday, Nov. 8, 2020. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae)TOKYO – The good news for the Tokyo Olympics is that Japan on Sunday held a one-day exhibition gymnastics meet in front of several thousand fans with 22 athletes participating from Russia, China, and the United States. The non-Japanese entered after a 14-day quarantine at home and were largely kept penned up in their Tokyo hotel in strict isolation. The event is the latest — a Japanese baseball stadium was filled to capacity last week — intended to show that the postponed Tokyo Olympics can open in just under nine months. Japan is officially spending $12.6 billion to organize the Olympics, although a government audit last year said it was twice that much.

What’s important is for Japanese government and Olympic officials to show that foreign athletes can enter the country safely and not spread COVID-19. This is another step in attempting to illustrate that Tokyo will be able to hold next year’s Olympics — even without a vaccine — in the midst of a pandemic. “I have no worries with the venue and there are no restrictions inside of the gym. They will involve 15,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes and thousands of staff, judges, officials, media and broadcasters. Two-time defending Olympic champion Kohei Uchimura of Japan, who reported a positive test last week for COVID-19, subsequently tested negative several times.

Simone Biles dropped the mic as she continued making history Thursday at the 2019 World Gymnastic Championships in Stuttgart, Germany. Just days after winning a record 21st medal at the competition, the superstar gymnast captured her fifth all-around world title. Biles scored 58.999 points, beating China's Tang Xijing by a whopping 2.1 points her largest-ever margin of victory at the world championships. Thursday's win brings Biles' all-around world titles to five, two more than any other female gymnast in history. On Tuesday, Biles won a record 21st medal, leading her team to their fifth consecutive world team championship in what is likely Biles' last world championship.