The victory also fulfills the dream of Kohei Uchimura, the individual gymnastics champion in London in 2012 and six-time world champ, who had declared on several occasions his obsession with adding the team event to his gold medal collection.
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Previous year in Glasgow, he won gold in men’s individual all-around at the World Championships, so he’s in a strong position to become the first repeat victor of the competition at the Olympics since 1972.
World champions Japan had been leading Russian Federation by just 0.208 going into their final floor rotation with China third at 0.739.
Whitlock had led after the first routine, on his favoured pommel horse, but he lost ground on the leading duo through the rest of the competition and eventually held on to bronze by 0.143 over Russia’s David Belyanskiy.
Whitlock, a two-time world all-around medallist, gave Britain a first Olympic men’s all-around medal since Walter Tysal’s silver in 1908.
The gymnast known as “King Kohei” becomes the first man to successfully defend his title since countryman Sawao Kato in 1972.
Uchimura now joins Kato on a record three Olympic medals in men’s all-around.
Danell Leyva, Mikulak and Naddour stayed on pommel horse but scored lower than expected. He was the only man to earn a score over 16 points, a 16.100 on parallel bars, and the lone gymnast with only one score under 15.
Once Deng (14.400) and Lin (15.000) had completed their dismount, China knew it was game over as Zhang was left needing to do something that has never been done in gymnastics – score more than 18 points on an apparatus. Six-time world all-around champion Uchimura then sealed the only title missing from his collection.
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The Brits put in such a strong performance, even impressing on the rings which is their known weakest apparatus, however, that fall from Smith dashed their hopes to win a second medal in the event following the bronze success at London. He fell on his vault.
