RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - China’s men’s gymnastics team had to settle for the bronze medal at the final despite a promising showing at the event’s qualifiers, breaking their eight-year streak at the top of the sport with Japan running away with the champion title.
The team, comprising of Lin Chaopan, Deng Shudi, Zhang Chenglong, Liu Yang and You Hao, sat back dejectedly in their chairs after Russia pipped their score of 271.122 by 0.331 points to claim the silver, with Zhang breaking down in tears afterwards backstage.
The Chinese men’s team dominated the Olympic podium in Beijing and London, but with the exception of Zhang, the remaining members of the group have no Olympic experience and are not well known in their homeland.
“It felt like I was dreaming, I couldn’t believe the result,” said Liu. “Our performance today was better than that (at the qualifiers) but our rivals did better.”
“We are trying to find the reason within ourselves … Like if I had practised a few more events I could have shared the burden more and the result could have been better,” said the gymnast, whose sole event was the rings.
Although the Chinese team came up on top during the qualifiers, they trailed in fifth place with two rotations to go, only pulling back on the parallel bars where they topped their competition.
Their other routines were marred by a few crucial mistakes: Deng fell on his hand and stumbled during the floor exercise, You over-rotated on his dismount from the rings and ran off his mat to finish while Lin landed on his knee and stumbled forward in the vault event.
When asked about Russia, whose entry had been under the cloud of the doping scandal, Liu said the team had the ability to win.
“And it doesn’t matter whether it’s the silver or bronze medal. As long as it’s not the gold medal it’s the same.”
(Reporting by Brenda Goh; Editing by Meredith Mazzilli)
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