Degrees of difficulty
Men’s gymnastics: Second-guessing begins as Americans struggle to place fifth after rousing opening
RIO DE JANEIRO — On an evening where they had to be practically perfect to keep pace with the world’s best gymnasts, the men of USA Gymnastics had too much power, or not enough, when it counted.
Two days after posting the second-best qualifying score at the loud, boisterous Rio Olympic Arena, the United States started slowly and closed quickly before finishing fifth for the second consecutive Olympics.
There was a comeback to remember Monday, but it belonged to the peerless champion Kohei Uchimura and his Japanese teammates, who parlayed fiendishly hard routine difficulty with white-knuckled bravura on high bar and floor to overtake Russia in their final two events to win the gold medal.
Japan had 274.094 points to blow past Russia, which led most of the afternoon, with 271.453. That was enough to edge 2008 and 2012 gold medalist China, which, like the Americans, struggled early before mounting a late challenge, with 271.112. Great Britain was fourth at 269.752, and the U.S. scored 268.56.
As they did in 2012, the U.S. men walked into the arena confident a medal was within their grasp, based on their qualifying scores. But they were essentially out of the running within 15 minutes of the opening bell.
On floor exercise, where they had the best qualifying scores, Sam Mikulak twice bounced out of bounds, and Alex Naddour twice had to steady himself with his right hand as he stumbled through his dismount. Then came dismount errors on horse by Danell Leyva and Naddour, and the U.S. was in seventh place among eight teams with too much ground to make up.
“We were a little shaky from the start,” Mikulak said. “We got some momentum that carried us through, we had a lot of fun and then we ended up where we ended up. Sometimes you go out of bounds on floor, and sometimes you don’t. That’s just how it is.”
They did give it the old college try (four of the five, Mikulak, Naddour, Jake Dalton and Chris Brooks of Houston, were NCAA veterans). There was yelling and fist-pumping as the U.S. men came roaring back with medalworthy performances on vault, parallel bars and, before a final fall by Leyva, on high bar.
Critical errors late
From down and out after three events, the U.S. had three 15-point scores on vault, three on parallel bars and back-to-back 15-point performances from Mikulak and Brooks on high bar.
But they needed the Chinese to falter, and the Chinese held fast. Leyva hit his first three above-bar release skills before falling short on the Tkachev, the most basic release in one of the world’s hardest high bar routines, but even if he had held on, fourth would have been the best the U.S. could have hoped for without big mistakes on high bar from China.
“We were on fire from vault, parallel bars and high bar, but we needed to start better,” coach Mark Williams said. “We came out of the blocks a little slow.”
Brooks, the team captain who overcame a long string of injuries to make the team at 29, said the rush of the U.S. comeback was like nothing else.
“It’s like a fire inside you, and when you raise your hand to go and the ball is rolling, it’s kind of terrifying,” he said. “But you feed off the energy, and before you know it, you land your dismount and the fire comes out of you. It’s a beautiful thing.
“We did our best to prepare for this moment. I told the guys to trust themselves and be aggressive, and if there are mistakes while being aggressive, that’s the nature of the sport.”
Second-guessing is the nature of the sport, too, and there likely will be some of that, given the struggles of the men’s team in comparison to the juggernaut that is the women’s national team.
Questions abound
There will be questions about whether the men need a leader with the same power that Martha Karolyi has wielded over the women’s program and questions about closing the gap in routine difficulty that the U.S. men suffer in comparison to the top teams, much as the U.S. women dominate the world; in terms of potential routine value, the Americans were in arrears to China by 3.8 points, Japan by 3.3 and Russia by 0.6 points.
“Things have gotten better,” Williams said. “Our guys this year were rock stars. They put their hearts out there for every routine The fight was there. We just need to be more prepared for the moment, start better and then finish.”
Brooks, 29, the oldest man on the squad, agreed.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day,” he said. “What we are trying to create is something special. You fall along the way, but you pick yourself up and move forward.”