Well, wasn't that some drama at the men's finals!
Theme of the night: beware the pommel horseman of the apocalypse. John Orozco botched his pommel horse routine again (barfed the ending, if I recall), and knew he lost the medal there. He once again burst into profuse tears.
He competed well enough for the rest of the night, though, to come in 8th.
He was not the only one to be felled by the horse, though. Tanaka Kazuhito of Japan came out really, really strong. Held onto second through most of the rotations, even after he sat his behind down during the floor routine (he had that much of a cushion, pun intended). But then, disaster struck on pommel horse, his last apparatus. His leg hit the side of the implement and had no choice but to fall right off. He went from being a shoo-in for a shock silver (he was a replacement on the Japanese team) to sixth place.
However, some people could get back on the horse after falling off! Leyva also botched his dismount, losing massive amounts of the D score. But he did not give up. He got a respectable score on floor, subpar but not fatal scores on rings and vault, then came parallel bars. The reigning world champ on the apparatus knew this was his chance. And he took it full force. A beautiful routine on it got him the highest score on the apparatus (which would eventually tie with Marcel Nguyen, more on him later). But the real comeback happened on the high bar, where Leyva had the crowd gasping with massive release skills one after the other. A solid landing later, and he and his coach/step-father knew he was on the podium. They were ecstatic. Since he was one of the last athletes to go, as soon as the scores came up it was confirmed he was on the podium. He'd wind up with the highest score on high bar, and this time he did not have to share that honor.
And he'd share that podium with yet another competitor who botched the horse! Germany's Marcel Nguyen, who seemingly came out of nowhere, also botched something on the horse (I forgot what it was, though). Enough to leave him in 17th in ranking on that apparatus. But completely unfazed, he nailed routine after routine on all the other apparatuses (except until his last routine, floor, where he faltered a tiny bit, but it was obvious it wasn't enough to jeopardize his silver). The man is something to watch. A delightful combination of power, spryness and flair.
Then, there's the guy, the gymnast god, really, who fell back to earth after very shaky performances in the qualifications round, and that controversial botched dismount on the evil pommel horse in the team final. Today, Kohei Uchimura tamed that freaking horse. He performed a flawless routine on it, enough to have the second highest score on the device. After that, it was pretty much never in doubt. Sure, now and then there are cracks in his form and power that shows you he's not quite the Superman of yore. But he shook off the Kryptonite during vault, where he exploded in perfect form, culminating in an immovably stuck landing. This was the winning moment of the whole event. It earned him the highest single score of the night, and sealed his gold medal right there. He'd end the night on floor with a pretty big stumble on one of his runs, but his lead could not be surpassed. The man who's generally acknowledged by people in gymnastics to be the greatest gymnast ever proved himself to be just that. Even in an entire competition where he's visibly off, he did well enough in the all-around to have the second highest scores on 3 of the apparatuses, the highest single score overall, and of course, the win.
They have 12 live streams and you can also choose broadcasts from any of the EBU countries or watch full event replays. It is a fabulous thing and I hope we will have it for Sochi.
If you download expatshield which is free you can watch bbc player and rewatch the parts of competiton you like. They also froze Maroney's vault in the air on the replay which was even more amazing to watch.
