site.btaBulgarian Gymnast Valentina Georgieva Places Fifth in Women's Individual Vault Finals in Paris

Bulgaria's Valentina Georgieva placed fifth in the women's artistic gymnastics individual vault finals at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Saturday.

The 18-year-old athlete, who is competing at the Olympics for the first time, performed two well-executed vaults. She received 14.100 points for her Yurchenko double pike and 13.866 points for her Tsukahara vault.

Making it to the finals is a major success for coach Filip Yanev’s pupil, who made her return to artistic gymnastics after a long absence due to a knee injury. Interestingly enough, Yanev also placed fifth in the men’s vault event at the 2004 Athens Olympics.

Georgieva is the second Bulgarian athlete to advance to the women’s gymnastics finals after the 1988 Seoul Olympics success of Diana Dudeva, who won bronze in the women’s floor exercise final.

On Saturday, USA's Simone Biles won the gold, executing the two vaults to near perfection and triumphing with 15.300 points. Biles earned her seventh Olympic gold medal and 10th Olympic medal overall.

Brazil’s Rebecca Andrade, who snatched the women's artistic gymnastics vault gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, came in second this time with a score of 14.966 points.

The bronze went to USA’s Jade Carey with 14.466.