On July 28th, the men’s artistic gymnastics all-around final took place and it was a very exciting and close competition! For this event, the highest scoring 24 men from the qualification round had the opportunity to compete for an all-around medal.
During the first rotation, Japan’s Daiki Hashimoto had a very strong showing with his floor routine, earning a 14.833 to start off the night. The Chinese athletes also performed strongly on floor with Xiao Ruoteng scoring 14.700 and Sun Wei earning 14.500 points. Japan’s Takeru Kitazono also opened the competition with a decent score of 14.500 on pommel horse. The ROC athletes, Nikita Nagornyy and Artur Dalaloyan, who just won the gold medal in the team event, had a slow start to the night on floor. Both men scored below 14.500 on their routines.
In rotation 2, Hashimoto once again scored brilliantly on the pommel horse, earning a 15.166. Ruoteng and Wei scored highly as well on this apparatus. Nagornyy and Dalaloyan once again scored lower than expected on pommel horse, only earning 14.266 and 13.900 points respectively.
As the competition reached the mid-way point during rotation 3, the Chinese athletes continued their high scores on the rings. Hashimoto here scored lower, as his difficulty level on rings is a 5.300 compared to the other men in his group whose difficulties are closer to 6.000. The ROC athletes improved their performance with the rings, as they both scored 14.666 and were the highest scoring in their group on this apparatus. Also during this rotation, Adem Asil of Turkey performed greatly on vault, earning a 15.133. Although finishing 15th overall, Asil was the only athlete to break the 15.000 mark on vault during the all-around final.
During rotation 4, Nagornyy and Wei both performed excellently on vault, earning 14.900 points each. Dalaloyan’s score here was lower, as he was not able to reach a 14.500. Hashimoto and Ruoteng also both scored 14.700 on vault.
As we entered into rotation 5, the American athletes Brody Malone and Samuel Mikulak rose up in the rankings a little, but still were not near medal contention. After his tougher start to the competition, Nagornyy performed an outstanding parallel bars routine to earn himself 15.400 points. Ruoteng was just slightly behind him on this apparatus with a 15.366. Hashimoto also performed a solid routine, earning 15.300 points on parallel bars. Dalaloyan and Wei struggled a bit here with lower scores than the other men in their group. Heading into the 6th rotation, the competition was very close between the top 4 men: Hashimoto, Ruoteng, Nagornyy, and Wei. Obtaining a place on the podium was still up in the air for these athletes at this point, with the next apparatus being very important in determining who would win a medal or not.
During the final rotation, Wei scored 14.400 on horizontal bar followed closely by Nagornyy who earned a 14.366. Ruoteng scored lower than he is capable of, earning 14.066 on the same apparatus. Hashimoto scored the highest in his group with a 14.933 on horizontal bar. This is one of his best apparatus and he went into this rotation with a higher difficulty level than the other medal contenders. Hashimoto’s wonderful performance here secured him the all-around gold medal. For Japan, this victory continues their winning streak, as Kōhei Uchimura won the all-around gold at the Rio games in 2016 and London in 2012. Hashimoto’s win made him the youngest man to ever win an all-around gold medal at just 19 years of age.
Ruoteng of China took home the silver medal in his first Olympic appearance and Nagornyy won the bronze. Sun Wei performed well throughout the night, but unfortunately scored just shy of Nagornyy by 0.233 of a point.
It was an intense and thrilling night of gymnastics! The next events for men’s artistic gymnastics are set for August 1st where the apparatus finals for floor and pommel horse are scheduled to take place.
Unbenched Sports 