US Olympic gymnasts who could qualify for the bar final: As for which two American gymnasts will make it into the uneven bar final, Salim-Beasley thinks Biles and Lee, despite the fact that Biles has had mistakes over the past few meets. "I think with more repetition that she'll clean up some of those areas that haven't been as consistent or sharp," Salim-Beasley said. "On an Olympic level, you really cannot count anybody out, especially someone like Simone. If she's on her A game, she can have an amazing bar routine and qualify through." I agree with her predictions, as Lee has high difficulty and high execution to match, and Biles still possesses a solid bar routine.
Olympic artistic gymnastics bar final podium contenders: Chan and Sacramone Quinn both had three top gymnasts on their predictions lists for medals: Lee, Belgian Nina Derwael, and individual athlete from China Fan Yilin. These women are the strongest bar workers in the world right now, Chan noted, adding that it'll be close. Lee received a high score of 15.300 on night one of the Olympic Trials. She is the 2019 and 2021 national bar gold medalist and also landed bronze on the event at the 2019 World Championships (she's my prediction for gold, by the way). Derwael is a two-time world and European champion on bars, and she has two bar skills named after her. Yilin is a two-time world champ.
While Biles has a chance at gold on the other events, I'm not certain that she can contend for a podium spot. She scores in the 14s, while these top gymnasts typically score above a 15 in competition. Neither Chan nor Sacramone Quinn named Biles for podium contention in their predictions. Chan, though, mentioned that Russia's Urazova is another contender for the podium due to her high scoring potential.
The Olympic artistic gymnastics bar final is slated for Aug. 1.