Olympics men’s gymnastics results: August 10
Recapping a thrilling men’s individual all-around final on Day 5 of the 2016 Rio Olympics.
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MEDAL RESULT | Men's individual all-around
Japan’s Kohei Uchimura successfully defended his Olympic individual all-around title with a come from behind victory over Oleg Verniaiev of Ukraine in one of the most exciting finishes of the Games so far.
After winning the team all-around on Monday, Japan was well represented in the individual final by Uchimura and Ryohei Kato. Uchimura, winner of five medals in London, posted a 15.766 on the floor exercise while Kato tallied a 15.266, putting both near the top of the leaderboard after the first rotation.
However, the early lead belonged to Great Britain’s Max Whitlock, who put up a 15.875 on the pommel horse. While that was Whitlock’s best apparatus by far in qualifying, he then scored a 14.733 on the rings to remain in contention.
Verniaiev, the winner of the qualifying round, made a move up the leaderboard to third with a 15.333 on the horse in his second rotation. Uchimura overtook Whitlock by a narrow margin with a 14.9 on the pommel horse, as the three contenders quickly separated themselves from the rest of the field.
Meanwhile, Team USA representatives Chris Brooks and Sam Mikulak were off the pace after a tough start to the final. After a strong effort in qualifying, Mikulak could not replicate the same success in either the team or individual final, and was in 19th after two rotations. Defending silver medalist Marcel Nguyen of Germany also found himself well off the lead early on.
Whitlock inched ahead of Uchimura with a 15.133 on the vault. Both were passed by the hard-charging Verniaiev after the third rotation, as he was nearly flawless on the rings with a 15.300. Brooks slowly inched up in the second rotation and then earned a strong 15.066 on the parallel bars to put him within striking distance of the podium at the halfway point.
Verniaiev and Uchimura then nearly matched scores on the vault, as the Ukrainian maintained a lead of around .400. Whitlock held third with a 15.000 on the parallel bars, just over half a point clear of the bunched up Brooks, Kato and China’s Chaopan Lin in medal position.
In the top performance of the entire afternoon, Verniaiev put up a huge 16.100 on the parallel bars to finally gain some separation. After nearly successfully completing a very difficult routine, Uchimura hopped on the bars landing to earn a 15.600 and trailed Verniaiev by .900 heading into the sixth rotation, with both gymnasts going to the high bar.
Lin set up an exciting finish in the race for bronze with a 15.166 on the high bar to move within .077 of Whitlock. China’s Shudi Deng and Russia’s David Belyavskiy both scored just shy of 16 on the parallel bars to also put pressure on Whitlock in the race for the bronze. Brooks’ floor routine earned just a 14.600, causing him to fall to ninth.
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Uchimura went first on the bar and landed a near-flawless rotation with a score of 15.800. Verniaiev completed a spectacular routine before a significant hop on the landing dropped his score to 14.800, putting him silver position less than 0.1 behind Uchimura in a thrilling finish.
Whitlock’s 15.200 on the floor proved just good enough to hold off Belyavskiy and Lin for bronze by just over 0.1, the first individual men’s gymnastics medal for Great Britain since 1908.
For more Rio gymnastics results, be sure to check out our Olympics hub page.