Key events
All-around champion Shinnosuke Oka of Japan swings through some impressive handstands and gets big air. His last big skill on the bars is a jump into a pike into a handstand … look, he’s very good. And his dismount was near perfect.
HAS to be at least bronze. Silver?
Germany’s Lukas Dauser took silver in Tokyo. He’s the 2023 world champion on this event. He’ll have to go big to beat Zou.
Ouch. He bangs into the bars as he swings downward. But the rest is otherworldly, aside from a hop on the landing.
He injured his bicep in June, so getting to this stage is an accomplishment in itself. He probably won’t top his qualification score of 15.166. Did he beat 15.1 to get on the podium? He doesn’t seem to think so, and we have a longer wait for the scores than we have for the previous gymnasts.
The score is …
The score is …
Come on, folks.
Difficulty 6.0, execution 7.7. That’s 13.700. I’d have to guess that his mishap also took out part of his planned routine.
One gymnast left – Vernaiev is guaranteed a medal.
China’s Zou Jingyuan is a boss. Almost every time he goes to a handstand, he immediately gets his body in a perfect line. He flings himself the length of the bars like a salmon jumping upstream, if a salmon could also get to a full vertical handstand. His dismount is nearly perfect as well.
NBC’s commentators believe this is the best routine of all time. It’s surely the best tonight.
Difficulty 6.9, execution 9.3. That’s a 16.200. That matches his score from qualification, and still, we could be forgiven for thinking he deserved even more.
Ukraine’s Oleg Vernaiev isn’t quite getting set on his handstands, and then he gets crossed up moving from bar to bar and spins out to land on the mat.
Like all gymnasts do even when they know they’ve made a mistake that will keep them from the podium, he goes over to get some chalk and hops right back up for a flawless final 20 seconds or so.
He finishes with 13.300.
All eyes now on Zou Jingyuan, the defending champion and by far the highest scorer in qualification.
Japan’s Wataru Tanigawa has a major bobble early in the routine, with his body leaning to about 2 o’clock before he managed to recover. He’ll have to be content with his gold in the team event. Poor guy.
Scores: 6.3 difficulty, 7.833 execution, 14.133. Fourth out of four with four to go.
Standings
15.500 Kovtun (UKR)
15.100 Zhang (CHN)
15.100 Arican (TUR)
14.133 Tanigawa (JPN)
Next up: Ukraine’s Oleg Vernaiev.
Turkey’s Ferhat Arican, the bronze medalist in this event in Tokyo, is trying a routine similar to Kovtun’s, but even the untrained eye can see a few flaws. His handstands are bent or curved, not straight. Will the difficulty score put him in contention?
He seems thrilled, and the crowd roars in appreciation. He makes a heart shape with his hands in response.
Difficulty 6.900, execution 8.200 – 15.100, tied with Zhang.
Next up, men’s all-around silver medalist Zhang Boheng. He does a dazzling leap, then springs all the way down the length of the bars from one end to the other.
He lands bent over with his head and chest down and takes a couple of moments to straighten out.
I would think what Zhang did was more difficult than what Kovtun did, but having attempted neither, I can’t say for sure.
Scores are in, and apparently, Zhang’s routine was simpler. His difficulty is 6.400, execution 8.700. That’s 15.100, a little under his previous efforts and well behind Kovtun, who bested his qualifying score here.
Ukrain’s Illia Kovtun builds suspense with long, firmly held handstands. He doesn’t do anything spectacular in the air, and he has as little hop on the dismount, but his form in switching positions on his handstands is fluid and confident.
It’s a 15.500 – 7.000 difficulty, 8.500 execution. That’ll contend for a medal.
There’s a nice ad for Hyundai airing in the USA about kids burning out on one sport and trying something else. It has multiple endings. I often see one with a young girl running off to play soccer with a big smile. Another ending features a boy fist-bumping as he walks into a breaking studio.
But every time my wife is in the room, it’s the latter.
This morning, it’s the soccer ending. I need to start recording it to prove to my wife that I’m not hallucinating.
The heavily inked Illia Kovtun is up first.
NBC leads off its coverage by announcing that Tom Brady is in attendance.
Please tune in anyway, those of you who grumble about his 23-year run of good fortune that led the Patriots and Buccaneers to seven championships. All luck. Well, most of it.
Men’s parallel bars lineup
The top qualifier is China’s Zou Jingyuan, with a breathtaking 16.200. Teammate Zhang Boheng qualified second with a 15.333. Japan’s Shinnosuke Oka was next at 15.300, then Ukraine’s Oleg Vernaiev (15.266), Germany’s Lukas Dauser (15.166), Ukraine’s Illia Kovtun (15.166), Turkey’s Ferhat Arican (15.033) and Japan’s Wataru Tanigawa (15.000).
Kovtun turned in a slightly higher score in the team event at 15.433 and was the top performer on the apparatus in the all-around with a 15.400. He finished fourth overall behind Oka, Zhang and China’s Xiao Ruoteng.
Preamble
Goooooooood morning, USA! Yes, it’s still dark, and many of you are still buzzing over Noah Lyles’ win yesterday, but it’s time to switch gears from the current fastest man to the women’s gymnastics GOAT, Simone Biles, who’ll share the stage today with Suni Lee, Jordan Chiles, Rebeca Andrade and Alice D’Amato on the final day of gymnastics competition.
Biles, Lee, Andrade and D’Amato are in the balance beam competition at 6:38 a.m. ET. Chiles replaces Lee in the floor exercise, today’s final event, at 8:23 a.m. ET.
We also have two men’s apparatus finals: horizontal bar at 7:33 a.m. ET, but up first, men’s parallel bars at 5:45.
Grab your coffee or tea and follow along.
Beau will be here shortly. In the meantime, here’s how Simone Biles got on in her previous event:
At the world championships last year, a few days after her spectacular comeback began with a stellar all-around gold medal, Simone Biles’s first vault final ended with a fall. It was the first time she had performed her Yurchenko double pike in a major final and as she searched for the floor after the vault, her legs crumpled beneath her. Biles finished in second place behind Rebeca Andrade of Brazil.
As the Biles redemption tour continues and the gold medals keep on coming, she reasserted her status as the greatest vaulter of all time, keeping Andrade at bay with another supreme exhibition. Biles finished the vault final with an average score of 15.3points. Andrade averaged 14.966 and Biles’s teammate, Jade Carey, scored 14.466 for bronze.
This is the second time Biles has won the vault gold medal, following on from 2016. With three golds –in the team, the all-around and the vault competitions – she has now won 40 Olympic and world medals, further extending her record as the most decorated gymnast – man or woman.
You can read the full report below: