Japan Wins Gold in Men's Team Gymnastics
The Japanese men's gymnastics team has won an Olympic gold medal with an epic comeback over its top rival.
China was on its way to claim its first Olympic title in 12 years. But with one event to go, Japan surged ahead to win the men's team competition by 0.532 points.
The Japanese, who were behind by more than three points going into the last apparatus, overtook their rivals after China's Su Weide fell twice off the horizontal bar and Xiao Ruoteng underperformed under pressure.
Having also missed a landing on the vault earlier, Su took the blame for the team's defeat.
"Today taught me a big lesson," Su said. "It's a big regret. I feel sorry for my senior partners in the team. They have worked very hard, ... there were a lot of injuries in the build-up, and because of my errors today, we lost the gold medal."
The Chinese had dominated qualifying ahead of Japan. Su's mistake on vault aside, China had been consistent on all apparatuses and took the lead halfway through the competition.
But Japan always felt it could turn things around. Takaaki Sugino, Shinnosuke Oka and Tokyo Olympics all-around champion Daiki Hashimoto helped the comeback with excellent performances on the horizontal bar.
"Even though there were some errors in our routines, we kept on motivating each other," Hashimoto said. "I used the passion of my teammates on my final routine on the high bar."
It was Japan's eighth gymnastics team gold and first since Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
The US team scored a total of 257.793 points to beat Britain for its first bronze since 2008.
Russia, which won gold at the Tokyo Games, did not compete because of its role in the war against Ukraine.
