By Jo-Ann Barnas, Detroit Free Press –
LONDON — They mounted a small charge, but the mountain was two high, the gap too wide. This was not about winning team gold anymore. That hope was all but lost for the U.S. men’s gymnastics team after the first two rotations in the Olympic final at North Greenwich Arena.
It was about finishing strong, fighting until the end.
(PHOTO: John Orozco competes in the parallel bars during the team men’s gymnastic artistic team final at the North Greenwich Arena for the Summer Olympics in London, England on Monday, July 30, 2012. )
The team that just two days earlier was on top of the world after winning the team qualifying with a splendid display of gymnastics, could do no better than fifth when it really counted.
It was a disappointing day all the way around for the Americans, who couldn’t come close to matching the precision and power of China, which easily defended its gold medal despite placing fourth in the weekend qualification.
The competition ended in controversy when the original finish of the medalists — China (275.997), Great Britain (271.711) and Ukraine (271.526) — was changed following a judges’ review of the final score awarded to three-time world all-around champion Kohei Uchimura of Japan on his final pommel horse rotation.
The new results vaulted Japan (271.952) to the silver, moved Great Britain down to the bronze and bumped Ukraine off the podium.
For the host country, it was still a splendid finish because it had won its first Olympic medal in men’s gymnastics since 1912.
For the Americans, the defending world bronze medalists, the finish was their worst since the 2000 Sydney Games, when they also took fifth.
“We’re going to learn how to handle this kind of expectation four years from now,” said U.S. captain Jonathan Horton, the only Olympic veteran on the five-man team. “I still believe in my heart that we’re one of the best teams out there. We, unfortunately, didn’t perform tonight, but we showed our heart and our passion.”
Michigan junior Sam Mikulak, the first American-born U.S. Olympian from the school to compete in men’s gymnasts, left the floor wearing the team jacket that had been made especially for the awards ceremony. He didn’t try to hide his disappointment.
“We wearing our reward’s outfit ‘cause we still find a victory in there,” he said.
The difference between Saturday’s team qualifying and what happened Monday? Nerves and inexperience. Initially overwhelmed by the moment, the U.S. men did come on strong at the end, posting the third-best parallel bars and high bar scores behind the Chinese and Japanese. But it was too late.
Their routines were filled with big errors — small ones, too. And on a day when the scores put up by each of the three gymnasts in an event counted, everything was costly.
The Americans began on floor exercise, where Mikulak landed short and put his hands down on his final tumbling pass. Danell Leyva slide off the pommel horse (13.400), followed two gymnasts later by a poor set by John Orozco (12.733).
By the end of the second rotation, the U.S. was in seventh place with 85.899 points, 7.316 behind leading China (93.215).
“Very rough stuff for us today,” said Mikulak, 19. “I felt very nervous on floor. It was definitely something I’ve never experienced before in my life. At the end of my (floor) routine, I got a little too amped up — I tried to go for that stick and just pulled it up a little short.
“It was definitely just a bunch of nerves. We’re all so young. This is something we’ve never experienced before. This is the most pressure that you can get. It was more like, every time you heard a giant roar, we would kind of tense up real fast.”
Before ending their final rotation on high bar, Horton gathered his teammates — with the coaches — for a meeting. It looked like a big group hug.
“I felt deep down inside that this could be the day,” Horton said. “I kept telling the guys, ‘We could go home — we could go back to the Olympic Village as Olympic champions tonight.’
“Maybe that was a little bit of my fault, that I kept showing that. Maybe I should have kept it a little more relaxed. We’re disappointed, no way to get rid of that. But this will make us work harder.”
