US Men's Gymnastics Impressive in Bronze Medal Effort

Men's gymnastics is often ignored; overshadowed by the much more popular women's gymnastics team. And heading into the Beijing Olympics, it looked like we wouldn't hear much from this year's US men's gymnastics team. Shortly before the Olympics, the team was dealt a devastating blow, when they learned that they would be without last year's individual gold medalist Paul Hamm, and his brother Morgan. Most thought that that would be an irrecoverable blow to the US team's medal hopes. But instead, the under-manned and inexperienced US team captivated the crowd in Beijing, and the US audience at home, and nearly pulled off one of the greatest upsets in Olympic history with an amazing performance on their way to a rather unexpected bronze medal.

After the August 9th preliminaries, it looked like the loss of the Hamm brothers would be too much for the US to handle. They finished 6th in the preliminaries, and looked to be longshots to win any sort of a medal. But on the night of the 11th, something strange happened. The US started to get some of the breaks that they needed. Teams that finished ahead of them in the preliminary round started to falter. Gymnasts from Russia, South Korea, and Germany started fall and make errors. Even the heavily favored Chinese made a few errors during their floor exercise program. Meanwhile, the US team was absolutely flawless. Their execution during their routines was perfect, and there was nary a hobble on any landing.

It was the perfect strategy for an upset-minded underdog. The team stuck with what they were good at, and performed it to perfection. As each gymnast stuck his landing, momentum started to build.

The highlight of the evening came during the United States' strongest event: the high bar. Justin Spring and Johnathan Horton put together fabulous, flawless routines that put them into first place in the competition and had the Beijing crowd chanting U-S-A.

Of course their lead was short-lived. The Chinese team was so far ahead of the rest of the field in terms of their difficulty that it was inevitable that they would take the lead, even with their minor bobbles. But to even take home a medal is an incredible accomplishment for this young gymnastics team that had no prior Olympic experience. They gave a great performance, and the future of US gymnastics looks very bright.