The Olympic medal is the first Britain has won in gymnastics since 1912 and spectators went wild when the result was announced.
Until the final moments of the event, it looked as though Team GB would win bronze. However when Japan’s Kohei Uchimura fluffed his dismount from the pommel horse his country was knocked two places down the table from second to fourth, supposedly making Great Britain silver medallists.
Initially, the final result was given as:
Gold: China: 275.997
Silver: Great Britain: 271.711
Bronze: Ukraine: 271.526
However, Britain’s silver medal was disputed as Japan protested about the score given to Uchimura. A jury used video replay to reach a decision and decided on revision that Japan should take second place, making the final result:
Gold: China
Silver: Japan
Bronze: Great Britain
While Gold was won by China, whose athletes performed with electric precision, the British team of Louis Smith, Daniel Purvis, Kristian Thomas, Max Whitlock and Sam Oldham had seriously upped the ante from their qualifying performance.
When the decision to drop Britain to bronze was announced, the stadium erupted in boos. However, it’s a great victory for the team to medal in this event.
Surely the biggest disappointment was felt by Ukraine.
