Nastia Liukin’s loss of an Olympic gold medal couldn’t have come in a closer or more convoluted manner.
The Beijing Games all-around champion from the US received the same 16.725 score as China’s He Kexin on uneven bars yesterday. A tiebreaker was used because dual medals are no longer awarded in gymnastics.
And that tiebreaker was so complex that long after the medals were handed out, International Gymnastics Federation officials still were explaining it.
PHOTO: AFP
Suffice it to say that because of the deductions from a perfect 10 for each gymnast in their execution scores, He had gold and Liukin had her second silver and fourth overall medal of these games.
Oddly, there also was a deadlock for the men’s vault gold, which went to Poland’s Leszek Blanik over France’s Thomas Bouhail.
Blanik’s 16.6 on the first vault was the highest of the four total attempts by the two gymnasts, giving him the gold. Bronze went to Anton Golotsutskov of Russia.
Chen Yibing of China won the still rings competition.
Chen remained perfectly still on nearly every move in registering a 16.600 that blew away the field.
Chen raised both arms high in the air when his name was announced at the medals ceremony.
After an arm bump with silver medalist Yang Wei, Chen looked like he was smelling his medal before he kissed it and held it up to the crowd.
All-around champion Yang Wei wasn’t nearly as impressive as in his previous rings routines, but his strength and steadiness earned him silver. Oleksandr Vorobiov of Ukraine took bronze.
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