Horse Vault, Men

The format was the same as it had been from 1984-2000, with eight gymnasts advancing from the team all-around, but no more than two per nation. Spain’s defending champion Gervasio Deferr qualified for the final, as did Li Xiaopeng (CHN), a three-time World Champion. They had to watch as Russian Aleksey Bondarenko crashed and fell on both vaults, receiving the remarkably low score of 4.550. Li also fell on his first vault, which ended his medal hopes, and he would place only seventh. Deferr performed two solid vaults and took the lead with 9.737. Romanian Marian Drăgulescu opened with his signature move, which bore his name, and scored 9.900, the highest score awarded at an Olympics or World Championships since 1995. On his second vault, however, he overshot his landing, going over the penalty stripe and touched down both hands to the mat. His score for that vault was 9.325, which seemed unusually high given that automatic deductions were required for his faults, and his average score of 9.612 brought him the bronze medal, trailing Deferr and Latvia’s Jevgēņijs Saproņenko.

Canada’s Kyle Shewfelt was fourth with 9.599, and they immediately protested after Drăgulescu’s second vault, stating that his score could not be that high with automatic deductions. There were five judges with the high and low scores eliminated. The other scores were required to be within 0.2 points of one another if the total was over 9.0. This was not true for Drăgulescu’s second vault, but the Canadian protest was brushed off by FIG Technical Director Adrian Stoica, who was also from Romania. Canada then lodged a protest with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), but quickly withdrew it, realizing it had little chance of success.