Asian American gymnast Leanne Wong replaced an injured teammate in two events at the 2023 World Artistic Gymanstics Championships team final on Wednesday. Her clutch routines helped Team USA win their seventh straight world title.
When the lineups for each rotation were released hours before the competition, 19-year-old Wong was only named to perform on balance beam. But, during vault warm-ups, her teammate Joscelyn Roberson suffered an ankle injury.
Wong subbed in for Roberson on vault and scored a 14.066. Her vault was not shown on Peacock’s television broadcast but a fan posted a video it on X, formerly known as Twitter.
The teenage gymnast, stumbled slightly on balance beam, scoring an 11.700. She regained her momentum on the floor exercise, where she replaced Roberson in the lineup again. Her routine earned a score of 13.166.
Team USA ended the night with a total of 167.729, winning the gold medal by 2.199 points. It was the team’s seventh straight
During a Thursday morning interview with Good Morning America, Wong said she learned that she would be performing two more routines after Roberson had an uncharacteristic landing on vault during warm-ups.
“Within a few seconds I had to switch my mindset and know that I had to do two additional routines for Team USA,” Wong told Good Morning America.
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