Daiki Hashimoto turned heartache into unimaginable joy as he overcame a fall from the pommel horse to power Japan to the gold medal, edging China in a pulsating gymnastics men’s team final at the Paris Olympics on Monday.
With Japan left languishing in fifth place at the halfway point of the competition, Hashimoto displayed nerves of steel during his final performance on the horizontal bar as the Asian powerhouse completed an incredible comeback to seal an eighth men’s team title at the Games. The United States were also left celebrating their first Olympic team medal since 2008 as they grabbed bronze.
The expected battle between China and Japan looked like it would not materialise after Hashimoto’s uncharacteristic fall off the pommel horse during the second rotation. Just when it looked like China had the title in the bag as they led Japan by more than three points going into the final high bar apparatus, Xiao Ruoteng completely botched his dismount by landing on both knees to earn his lowest score of the day of 13.433.
Incredibly, his team mate Su Weide then lost his grip twice while attempting release and catch manoeuvres during his routine. As he came crashing down on the mat, so too did China’s gold medal hopes. The look on his team mates said it all as they just could not believe that they had thrown away the title that had been within their grasp with impressive performances during the first five rotations. When Su’s score of 11.600 flashed up, Hashimoto knew all he needed to do was to stay on the bar and the title would be Japan’s.
The Tokyo 2020 all around champion, who had scored just 13.100 on the pommel horse, effectively won Japan the gold with a score of 14.566 on the bar. Even though China still had one more competitor to go on the bar, Zhang Boheng must have known that his chances of scoring 15.265 points to tie with Japan were slim and so it proved to be.
As his score of 14.733 came up, the Japanese gymnasts were left in floods of tears, with some of them collapsing to the ground in pure disbelief at what they had pulled off. Japan emerged victorious with a total of 259.594 points, less than a point ahead of China.
The US men put on a superb performance and locked up the bronze after nailing most of their landings in the competition. Britain finished fourth and Ukraine fifth. Russia, who won the team gold at the Tokyo Games three years ago, are barred from competing in Paris due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Chinese squad grabbed the lead at the midway point with stellar performance on still rings and looked unbeatable after Zou Jingyuan secured 16.000 on parallel bars.
But the drama that then unfolded left everyone on the edge of their seats.
