After she took the lead in the 3rd rotation, the best gymnast from the qualification Carly Patterson (USA) in the end was celebrated as the new Olympic Champion in the women’s all-around. With the score of 38.387 she secured her victory with 0.176 points in front of Svetlana Chorkina (RUS) who was very happy about the all-around silver medal in her third Olympic Games.
Her team mate Anna Pavlova lost the bronze medal on the last apparatus to the third-ranked from last year’s World Championships Zhang, Nan (CHN).

1st ROTATION
The injured Oana Ban is replaced by 17-year old Stephanie Moorehouse (AUS) who started off this rotation on vault (9.037).
Nicoletta Sofronie followed with a double-twisting Yurchenko and a small step on the landing, 9.412.
Carly Patterson - with the same vault but a bit larger step to secure the landing and a not completely finished rotation – 9.375.
The 3rd- ranked from the last World Championships Zhang, Nan from China also on vault with Yurchenko 1 1/2 twists of which she stuck the landing – 9.325. And then followed Chorkina with RO- 1/2 turn – sommersault fw. tucked 1 1/2 twists and she took the lead with 9.462.

2nd ROTATION
Sofronie started faultless on uneven bars, after her followed Patterson also with a good routine and a stuck tucked full-in- dismount – 9.575 = 18.950, but she remained behind Sofronie.
Zhang, Nan on uneven bars with elegant and technically perfect gymnastics – very nice handstand- turns, only a very slight step to secure the landing of her dismount – 9.462 = 18.787.
Chorkina on the apparatus where she wants to get her third Olympic title in a row on Sunday. But in this moment only the all-around is important: She started very concentrated, straddled Tkatchev, nice handstands and giants, tucked full-in dismount with only a very slight step – a good routine – 9.725 = 19.187, the highest score up to now!
Courtney Kupets presented a strong and dynamic routine, very safe Markelov, but a larger step to secure the landing of her tucked full-in dismount – 9.625 = 18.900.

3rd ROTATION
Carly Patterson presented a perfect routine on beam with an arabian as dismount and sets high marks with her 9.725 – the lead with 28.675! Zhang, Nan with a slight wobble but otherwise safe acrobatics and a stuck RO - double tucked bw. dismount. However, overall not a totally convincing performance – 9.662.
Svetlana Chorkina then followed with safe acrobatic elements but slight insecurities on her tuck jump 1/1 turn and her 1/1 spin. However, she remained on the beam and stuck her RO- Gainer 2 1/2 twists dismount. With only 26 hundredth of a point she is now behind Patterson!
Courtney Kupets - a powerful routine with very difficult acrobatics, but then a major wobble on a split-leap with leg change 1/2 turn after which she almost fell, but except for another this time smaller wobble on her tuck jump 1/1 turn she continued well and stuck her ff – ff- double tucked bw. dismount – but only the score of 8.975!!

4th ROTATION
Zhang Nan started on floor with a very high full- in and in the end reached the score of 9.600 on her last apparatus.
Then Chorkina said “Good bye…” not only with her music: She showed her last floor routine in a competition: The audience celebrated this lady of gymnastics during an emotional floor routine. The judges had the job to judge this routine and gave her the score of 9.562 = 28.211.
Courtney Kupets followed with a dynamic and speedy routine with great acrobatics- 9.237 (SV 9.7).
9.525 for Elena Gomez, wo was 10th before the last rotation, on uneven bars.
...And everyone was waiting for Pavlova and Patterson and the decision for the medals:
Nicoletta Sofronie with a good ending on floor – high tucked full-in, triple twist, 2 1/2 twists – layout fw., bw. piked in the end – 9.537.
Anna Pavlova needed a good vault for a medal: double-twisting Yurchenko, slight problems with the landing – with tears in her eyes she lost the 3rd rank to China’s Zhang, Nan.

But then Carly Patterson on floor: safe tucked full-in, a sensational high arabian, 2 1/2 twists – layout fw., in the end a stuck double piked – this could only be the gold medal – 9.721!
After silver in the team event, like also for the men, now followes all-around gold for the USA. Carly Patterson is the second Olympic all-around champion from the USA after Mary Lou-Retton (1984). Congratulations also for a very good farewell after a unique career for Svetlana Chorkina.

Final standing after the 4th rotation:
1. Patterson (USA) 38,387
2. Chorkina (RUS) 38,211
3. Zhang, Nan (CHN) 38.049
***************************************
4. Pawlowa (RUS) 38,024
5. Sofronie (ROM) 37,948
6. Yarotska (UKR) 37,687
7. Debauve (FRA) 37,361
8. Gomez (ESP) 37,299
9. Kupets (USA) 37,112
10. Slater (AUS) 37,099
>> Official results: women's all-around

Olympic gymnastics king - Hamm is successor of Nemov
In an exciting Olympic all-around final with great performances but also dramatic falls of various favourites in the end World Champion Paul Hamm (USA) took the lead with the score of 57.837 despite of a fall on vault.

He overtook Korea’s KIM, Dae Eun who presented a faultless all-around (57.811) and his team mate Yang, Tae Young (57.648).

As well the Japanese gymnasts as also one of the favourites Yang, Wei (CHN) suffered from falls during their routines and through this lost their chances on a medal.

Standing 1st ROTATION:
1. Paul Hamm (USA) 9,725 (FX)
1. Yang, Wei (CHN) 9,725 (PH)
3. Ioan Suciu (ROM) 9,650 (FX)
4. Brett McClure (USA) 9,625 (VA)
5. Marian Dragulescu (ROM) 9,612 (FX)
6. Isao Yoneda (JPN); R. Martinez (ESP); Caranobe (FRA): 9,775

Standing 2nd ROTATION:
1. Yang, Wei (CHN) 19,462
2. Paul Hamm (USA) 19,425
3. Ioan Suciu (ROM) 19,387
4. Brett McClure (USA) 19,350
5. Kim, Dae Eun (KOR) 19,249
6. Eric Lopez (CUB) 19,200

Standing 3rd ROTATION:
1. Paul Hamm (USA) 29,012
2. Yang, Wei (CHN) 28,974
3. Brett McClure (USA) 28,963
4. Ioan Suciu (ROM) 28,937
5. Yang, Tea Young (KOR) 28,877
5. Rafael Martinez (ESP) 28,877
7. Eric Lopez (CUB) 28,877
8. Marian Dragulescu (ROM) 28,699

Standing 4th ROTATION:
1. Yang, Wei (CHN) 38,744
2. I. Suciu (ROM) 38,674
3. Yang, Tea Young (KOR) 38,586
4. Dragulescu (ROM) 38,549
5. KIM, Dae Eun (KOR) 38,436
6. B. McClure (USA) 38,374
7. R. Martinez (ESP) 38,362
8. R. Zozulia (UKR) 38,429

6th ROTATION:
Kim, Dae Young ended his all-around on floor with 9.650: 57.811. What would this be in the end…?
Dragulescu ended on high bar, being only 1 tenth behind the medal ranks after the 5th rotation - …slight problems at the begining of his routine, then a good Kovacs 1/1 turn and a stuck dismount but he didn’t manage to overtake Kim: - 9.337 and a total of 57.323.
Hiroyuki Tomita unfortunately with a few steps after his dismount on high bar – 9.662
Brett McClure fighted for a medal on rings – he was third after the 5th rotation, not convincing in his strength elements, only a SV of 9.5. He stuck his dismount but with the score of 9.162 the dream of a medal is probably over.
Yang, Tae Young – the leading gymnast is fighting for gold on high bar – a good layout Tkatchev, then slight problems during his giants but he brought the routine to a safe end with only a very small step at the dismount. The very slight insecurities during the routine and the step on the dismount cost him the lead – 9.475 -
…and suddenly there was again a chance for Paul Hamm. He started concentrated in his high bar routine, the series of Tkatchevs layout – straddled – piked went very well, a stuck dismount – and the sensation is perfect – 9.837!!

Paul Hamm is the first Olympic all-around champion from the USA in history with the score of 57.823. After his major mistake on vault he caught up again and crowned his concentration during the last routines with the gold medal!

Final standing after 6 rotations
1. Paul Hamm (USA) 57,823
2. KIM, Dae Eun (KOR) 57,811
3. Yang, Tae Young (KOR) 57,774
************************************************
4. Ioan Suciu (ROM (57,648
5. Rafael Martinez (ESP) 57,549
6. Hiroyuki Tomita (JPN) 57,485
7. Yang, Wei (CHN) 57,361
8. Marian Dragulescu (ROM) 57,323
>> detailled results

Being the clearly best team today evening the Romanian women's artistic gymnastics team defended their Olympic gold medal from Sydney with the score of 114.283. This is their 3rd Olympic team title after Los Angeles 1984 and Sydney 2000.
Their strongest competitor USA won the silver medal with the score of 113.584.
Getting stronger through the course of the competition Russia secured themselves the Olympic bronze medal with the score of 112.235….

1st ROTATION, Standing
1. ROM 28,437
2. USA 28,387
3. RUS 28,325
4.CHN 28,149
5. UKR 27,987
6. ESP 27,837
7. FRA 27,449
8. AUS 27,324

2nd ROTATION, Standing:
1. USA (28,524) =56,911
2. ROM (28,136) =56,573
3. RUS (28,137) =56,462
4. UKR (28,099) 56,086
5. CHN (27,549) 55,698
6. FRA 55,611
7. ESP 55,436
8. AUS 54,773

3rd ROTATION, Standing:
1. ROM (28,961) = 85,534
2. USA (28,499) = 85,410
3. RUS (28,511) = 84,973
4. UKR = 84,285
5. ESP (28,412) = 83,848
6. CHN = 82,922)
7. FRA = 82,622
8. AUS (27,10) = 81,873

Romania proved on floor why they were the gold medalists of this women’s team final. Nicoletta Sofronie started with 9.562, Oana Ban followed with 9.437 and the highest score was reached by Catalina Ponor with a very beautiful routine including piked full-in, 2 1/2 twists –summersault piked fw., triple twist, double piked bw. – 9.750!

The Romanians happily hugged each other after winning the 3rd team gold in the Olympic history (1984, 2000, 2004) for their country. But also the teams on the following ranks can be happy with their performances.
The Spanish team managed to improve through the course of the competition especially through their best gymnast Elena Gomez, they ended up on rank 5 (like at home in Barcelona 1992) in front of France, China and Australia who again had quite a bit of bad luck today.

A dramatic fight of Continents:
Asia - America - Europe
With a technically very impressive team performance Japan managed to win the gold medal in the men’s team competition again after 28 years. They reached the score of 173.721 and clearly stayed in front of the USA who won silver with 172.933 which brought them the first Olympic team medal after the Games in 1984.
Also the Romanians lost the dramatic battle for gold at the last apparatus but nonetheless for the first time in history they won an Olympic team bronze medal (172.384).

2nd rotation:
The Chinese impressed with 3 perfect routines on pommel horse and the highest score by World Champion Li, Xiaopeng with 9.862. They came closer to the top 3 but didn’t manage to overtake them. The US team still kept the lead, World Champion Paul Hamm presented a perfect routine for which he received 9.750 points. Japan remained on the 3rd place in this rotation.

4th rotation
The Romanians improved their lead on vault, starting with Selariu with 9.525, followed by Suciu with 9.675 and Dragulescu who despite of heavily rowing with his arms in order to stick the landing received the score of 9.825. – A great team score of 29.025.
China’s performances were led by Li, Xiaopeng with 9.725 but they remained behind Japan and the USA on the 4th rank…

6th and FINAL rotation:

This final rotation was a true thriller in the Olympic Hall:
In a dramatic situation on high bar Romania’s Selariu came to close to the bar on his “Def” and fell down… was this the loss of the gold medal…?
Marius Urzica was the last gymnast. He kept his nerves after Sucia scored only 9.2 and presented a great routine which probably secured Romania’s bronze medal!
Now everyone was looking to the US team: Brett McClure started with a good routine and also the twins Morgan and Paul Hamm didn’t make any visible mistakes – however, Paul Hamm left out the third flight element in a combination which dropped his start value to 9.7, nonetheless he received the score of 9.462!
Would this mistake be allowed in the battle for gold…?

>> ...Detailled team results

The Olympic Champion from 2000 Romania was the best and most consistent team during today’s team qualification. With the score of 152.436 they took the lead in front of their main competitor USA and China.

Russia, Ukraine, France, Spain and Australia also reached the final of the best 8 teams which will take place on Tuesday.

Brazil, Canada, Great Britain and North Corea followed on the ranks 9 – 12.

2nd GROUP: CAN, ROM, UKR, USA and individual starters

REPORT: -- It seemed a bit like that the Olympic women’s artistic gymnastics competitions only really started with this second subdivision!
As expected this group was dominated by the battle between the equally strong teams from Romania and the USA. Romania, the Olympic Champion from 2000, has much improved especially on bars which in the past usually was a bit of a weak point for their team. On beam the Romanians then clearly dominated the field. Both Romania and USA seem to be top- fit for these Olympic Games. The Ukrainian team presented a solid but not spectacular competition, maybe they lack a bit of the “management” which other top gymnastics nations have for their teams.
The strongest all-arounder so far is Carly Patterson (USA) with the score of 38.337, followed by Nicoletta Sofronie (ROM; 38.062) and by Oana Ban (ROM; 37.975). Courtney Kupets (USA) follows on rank 4 in front of the 2 Russians Svetlana Chorkina and Anna Pavlova.
With her score of 9.625 on uneven bars Sofronie was the one who came closest to the highest score on this apparatus of Chorkina (9.750) while Catalina Ponor received the currently highest scores of the day on beam (9.775) and floor (9.687).

TEAM results after the 2nd subdivision:
1. ROM 152,436
2. USA 151,848
3. RUS 149,420
4. UKR 148,908
5. CAN 146,947
6. GBR 145,797
7. PRK 144,372

Special highlights of this 3rd subdivision were e.g. the floor routine of China’s CHENG, Fei who started with a double-double and then had a piked full-in in the 2nd row; then she presented summersault bw. – 2 1/2 twist – layout fw. and she ended her routine with a triple twist. The score of 9.650 certainly secures her a spot in the final.
A penalty of 0.5 points deduction from the team score of China because of an unauthorized remaining on the podium of one coach during their rotation on vault has been discussed but has not been confirmed up to now!

TEAM results after the 3rd subdivision:
1. ROM 152,436
2. USA 151,848
3. CHN 151,085
4. RUS 149,420
5. UKR 148,908
6. AUS 147,419
7. CAN 146,947
8. GBR 145,797
9. PRK 144,372

TEAM results after the 4th subdivision:
1. ROM 152,436
2. USA 151,848
3. CHN 151,085
4. RUS 149,420
5. UKR 148,908
6. FRA 148,759
7. ESP 147,921
8. AUS 147,419
- qualified!
*********************************************
9. BRAS 147,345
10. CAN 146,947
11. GBR 145,797
12. PRK 144,372

The Olympic career of a great gymnastics personality, the 29-year-old vault World Champion Oksana Chussovitina, came to a sad ending today. With already known knee problems she hobbled on the podium and then didn’t have the power to run at full speed for her first vault. The fall which then followed seems to have been inevitable and it is hard to explain why she even started for her second vault afterwards.
8.675 and 8.925 – these are scores which absolutely don’t represent what the World Champion normally would be able to show on this event. … A personality of the World of gymnastics like Oksana Chussovitina would have deserved a better ending for her Olympic career which now poses the question if it wouldn’t have been the responsability of her coach to prevent her from it!

Japan’s gymnasts assumed the leadership after the third round of the last group and turned out to be the best gymnastic nation with 232.134 points in the preliminary competition. The team from USA with 230.419 points as well as Romania (230.019) followed on the ranks.
Besides China (4th), Ukraine (5th), Russia (6th) and Korea (7th.), the German gymnasts qualified as eighth for the team final on Monday with an enormous gladiatorial performance...

....And Vice-World Champion on high bar Igor Cassina baffled the spectators on high bar with three magnificent Korvac variants: stretched, stretched with full turn, piked with full turn: 9.775! That was a routine for the upcoming apparatus final! His compatriots, however, foozled on this apparatus...!
On rings the expected duel of masters took place, furthermore, both started in the same squad:
First, Jordan Jowtschew presented splendidly performed strength combinations and matched Urzica’s top score - 9.812. Then Dimosthenis Tambakos followed. The Greek, who only enters the competition on this apparatus, did not present his strength elements as confident as the Bulgarian, however, both audience and presumably also the judges were on his side. He received the top score of this group: 9.850 points... after silver in Sydney he is definitely aiming for gold here at home!
Even though on parallel bars we should wait for the best gymnasts from Korea, China and Japan who will perform in the evening ...Yann Cucherat (FRA) performed already a first highlight and is hoping for a place in the final (9.750).
The former World Champion on high bar, Vlavios Maras, was much acclaimed by the native audience for his excellent giant technique, with both or only one arm, a Gaylord-somersault as flight element in between and a securely landed stretched double Tsukahara (9.725 - with exactly the identical score he became World Champion in Debrecen 2002)...

For a first group there was an enormous level of scores. Hopefully, the differentiation in the following groups will not suffer and the athletes will not be at a disadvantage.

Team Result of the 1st group:
1. ROM 230,190
2. FRA 226,231
3. CAN 221,905
4. ITA 221,431