Chris Brooks’ Olympic experience was about more than finishing 14th in the men’s all-around.
Finishing 14th beside the point; Houstonian glad just to compete
RIO DE JANEIRO – While Kohei Uchimura of Japan and Oleg Verniaiev of Ukraine were staging an all-around event for the ages a few feet away Wednesday afternoon, Chris Brooks of Houston took a little quiet time to give thanks for being a part of a memorable day in men’s gymnastics.
Brooks was a non-factor in the down-to-the-wire race for the gold medal won by Uchimura, the six-time world champion and defending gold medalist, by 0.099 of a point with an epic high bar routine in his final event. But just being part of the action was enough on this day.
As he bent over the chalk bowl to the right of the high bar before beginning his routine, Brooks said, “I was just praying a little bit, just thanking God for the opportunity to be out here and to perform my routines so that I could have a platform to share my story.
“And then I said, ‘Dad, this one is for you. Let’s go.’ ” Epic battle for gold
With thoughts of his late father, Larry, on his mind, and with his mother, Terry, and brother Nick watching from the stands, Brooks proceeded to post the third-best high bar score of the day at 15.2, a highlight of an afternoon in which he scored 87.632 points for 14th place in an all-around final that gymnastics fans will talk about for years.
The Uchimura-Verniaiev showdown came down to the final event. The Ukrainian had an epic score of 16.1 on parallel bars to pad his lead going into the final rotation, but Uchimura had the edge on high-bar difficulty, and that factor decided the day.
Uchimura went first on high bar, hitting all four of his abovebar releases and scoring 15.8 points — 7.1 for difficulty, 8.7 for execution. Verniaiev, needing a score of 14.899 to win, followed with a routine that had less difficulty (6.5) with a lower execution score (8.3). His 14.8 score left him short by a fraction of a point as he spread his hands in resignation and congratulated Uchimura.
Max Whitlock of Great Britain won the bronze medal, and threetime USA Gymnastics national champion Sam Mikulak, the other U.S. competitor in the allaround with Brooks, was seventh at 89.631.
Mikulak and three other U.S. men will go on to compete in event finals, but the all-around final was it for Brooks, who at 29 is the oldest man on the team and has endured a lifetime of injuries.
It was his first all-around at an Olympics or world championships, and his body felt the strain.
“I have a whole new respect for those who have competed in an all-around final, because that was intense,” Brooks said. “My body was tired, and it was mentally and physically a struggle, but I was able to go out there and hit routines.”
He was in the top 10 much of the afternoon but closed with his weakest events — floor and pommel horse — to drop to the middle of the pack. Still, after sitting in the stands as an alternate in 2012, he was in uniform and on the floor to see his name on the scoreboard and to hear his name called at the Olympics. Never-give-up attitude
From here, Brooks said he will go on the post-Olympic tour for USA Gymnastics, which includes a stop in Houston, and return to his training base in Colorado Springs, Colo., for a round of physical therapy — the seventh event in men’s gymnastics, he said, smiling.
He said this was his final allaround competition but that he may attempt to compete in 2017 or 2018 as an event specialist on high bar or parallel bars. He hopes to be an ambassador for the sport.
“There’s not much special about me,” he said. “I’m not the most talented guy. I’m not physically designed for gymnastics. I’m a little bit big, a little bit bulky, and I’ve had tons of injuries. The cards are stacked against me.
“But if you have heart and determination and don’t give up, good things happen. Don’t let people say you can’t do something, because look at me.”