The streak is over. China's women's artistic gymnastics team won the 2025 World Championships team gold in Rotterdam, finishing 0.233 points ahead of the United States and ending a run of American dominance that stretched back to 2014. It came down to the final routine of the competition — Qiu Qiyuan's floor exercise — and she delivered exactly what her team needed. The margin was razor-thin, but the inflection point was the balance beam. The Americans had built a healthy lead through vault and uneven bars, propelled by Skye Blakely — the only member of the squad who was part of the 2023 title-winning team. Then 18-year-old Caylor Dulcy stumbled, scoring just 12.333. China outscored the US on beam by more than four points, a swing that effectively flipped the competition. Zhang Qingying's 15.066 on beam was the performance that broke the Americans' grip. This is a post-Biles landscape, at least temporarily. Simone Biles, 23-time world champion and five-time team gold winner, hasn't competed since the 2024 Paris Olympics, where she won three golds. Her absence doesn't diminish China's achievement — you still have to beat whoever shows up — but it's the necessary context for understanding why the streak ended now rather than at some hypothetical future date. Qiu Qiyuan needed 12.600 on floor to clinch it and scored 12.833. That's not a dominant margin — it's a clutch one. The difference between gold and silver was a single wobble on beam and a single composed floor routine. China led qualifying and held their nerve when it mattered. Japan took bronze, 1.468 points behind the US, with France in fourth. For China, this is their first women's team world title since 2006 — a 19-year gap that tracks with the country's uneven investment in the women's program relative to their men's side. The last time the US failed to win team gold was 2010, when Russia beat them. The program's depth is being tested in Biles's absence, and Rotterdam showed the cracks are real. The championships continue Thursday with the men's all-around, where Japan's Daiki Hashimoto defends his title against compatriot and Olympic champion Shinnosuke Oka. Japan already took the men's team gold on Tuesday, edging Russia and China. The Dutch venue is producing genuine drama.
