BEIJING – The U.S. men’s gymnastics team arrived here as a decided underdog. Its members will be leaving as Olympic medalists.
The Americans won the bronze medal in the team final today, a shocking result considering they had lost two of their members to injury and were not expected to compete with China or Japan.
But there they were last night in first place after three rotations of the team final, half the event. Eventually, they slipped behind the Chinese and back into third place, but the bronze was more than what was expected here.
China took the gold with 286.125 points, Japan was second with 278.875 and the Americans finished with 275.850.
It looked like the Americans might slip out of medal contention in their final apparatus, the pommel horse. Kai Wen Tan and Raj Bhavsar both got low scores, leaving it up to Alexander “Sahsa” Artemev to push them back into the top three.
The 22-year-old, who was born in Russia, delivered with an outstanding routine to get a score of 15.350, enough to keep Team USA ahead of fourth-place Germany.
“This team performed at its best today,” Artemev said. “We showed everybody the heart and soul of this team.”
As Artemev came off the horse and rejoined his teammates, he was greeted with hugs and cheers of “That was huge.”
The Americans took a silver in Athens in 2004, but no members of that team were here. Paul Hamm dropped out before the Games with an injury and was joined by his brother Morgan last week, who injured his ankle during practice in Beijing.
The loss of the Hamms was seen as insurmountable, but the group of American gymnasts that was unknown to most Americans yesterday put on a show last night.
“This is the most incredible team I’ve ever been on,” Jonathan Horton, the team’s top scorer, said. “We did what we came to do.”
The horizontal bar was where the U.S. team made its biggest impact. Only China scored higher on the apparatus. Justin Spring, Joey Hagerty and Horton combined for a score of 46.925.
The Americans started the night on rings and finished third with a score of 46.375. Horton, Bhavsar and Tan got the team off to a strong start.
They were in second entering the final apparatus. The pommel horse is their weakest event and it showed. Tan led off and scored a miserable 12.775, putting the U.S. team in a hole. Bhavsar was up next and he scored a 13.750, digging the hole a little deeper before Artemev came through with a performance to put them on the medal podium.