Canada's Elisabeth Black 8th at gymnastics worlds

Halifax's Ellie Black placed eighth in the women's floor final on Sunday at the world gymnastics championships, capping an impressive week of competition for the 18-year-old university student.

Simone Biles of the United States ruled the eight-woman final, winning gold with a score of 15.000 points.

Silver medallist Vanessa Ferrari of Italy was a distant second with a score of 14.633 and Larisa Iordache of Romania was third at 14.600.

"I've got my first world championships under my belt now and I'm ready to go for another," said Black, who also placed 13th all around earlier in the competition, to set an all-time best Canadian mark along with teammate Victoria Moors of Cambridge, Ont., who finished 10th. 

Just being here and seeing what other girls are doing is making me so much more excited to go home and start working on new skills and new routines.- Elisabeth Black

"Just being here and seeing what other girls are doing is making me so much more excited to go home and start working on new skills and new routines."

Black stepped out of bounds on her last landing to finish with a score of 13.566 points.

All-around champion Kohei Uchimura of Japan won the men's parallel bars to give Japan a fourth gold medal out of seven men's events. The U.S. team finished with 12 medals, beating its previous best of nine at the 2005 Melbourne championships, and showed overwhelming domination of the weeklong event.

The performance of the day came from Olympic high bar champion Epke Zonderland of the Netherlands, who set the Sports Palace alight with a routine full of gravity-defying leaps to win the last event of the championships, edging Fabian Hambuechen of Germany and making Uchimura settle for bronze.

After winning a record fourth all-around world title early in the week, Uchimura was at his best again in the parallel bars, enough for a shared gold with China's Lin Chaopan.

Already acknowledged as the greatest gymnast ever, it was Uchimura first gold in the parallel bars. Usually serene and withdrawn, Uchimura was pumping his fists and flashing big smiles to the thousands in the Sports Palace after John Orozco of the United States took third place.

Aliya Mustafina won Russia's first gold medal of the championships, edging Kyla Ross of the U.S. on the balance beam.

Mustafina, the 2010 all-around champion, was near flawless as she twirled, twisted and jumped at will on the narrow beam, and then watched Ross and Biles fall short of surpassing her. It was Ross' third silver of the championships. Biles took bronze.

In the men's vault, South Korea's Yang Hak-seon continued to dominate. The defending and Olympic champion brought a difficult new vault to Antwerp and performed it well enough to slip past American rival Steve Legendre. Kristian Thomas of Britain took bronze.