Four years ago they placed a distant seventh of eight teams in the event final, crushing their chances at a medal.
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The U.S. rallied on rings and especially on vault after the slow start, but couldn’t catch Japan, Russia or defending champ China. But their longtime rivals, Team China, and a host of hungry teams like Great Britain, Brazil and the United States are standing between Japan and the top of the podium.
However, the USA fell back to sixth once the other teams finished their fourth rotations, and could only manage to move up one spot over their final two rotations despite turning in solid performances on the parallel bars and horizontal bar.
But all teams will enter the final with a clean slate, the qualification scores wiped away.
Mikulak, Dalton and Leyva were on the 2012 London team, while Naddour and Brooks were alternates.
The U.S. men’s team competes Monday night, but sadly, will not be shirtless. He returned to compete on the pommel horse but is out for the rest of the Olympics. Then Mikulak, who’d performed well enough on the floor in Saturday’s qualifying to make the event final, followed that with a shaky routine of his own, stepping out of bounds – twice.
One thing that could certainly help USA men’s gymnastics is if they were able to win more. She scored 13.066 on floor exercise (57th overall), 13.000 on the balance beam (61st) and 12.433 on the uneven bars (70th). And Mikulak again set the tone on the parallel bars with a big 15.7 score and wild celebration to pump up his teammates.
Mikulak will compete in the floor and high bar finals, while Leyva will compete in the high bar and parallel bar finals.
A familiar feeling was all that was left.
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But at the same time, China was making an even bigger move, and after five rotations, the US was just behind Great Britain for fourth, but almost 2 full points out of third place. London recalling, if you will.
