PRE OLYMPICS: Artistic gymnastics, men s all-around final

March 18th 2004: Men’s all-around final
In a nicely set up venue which has been equiped with technical know-how and which already presented quite a bit of Olympic flair the organisers and suppliers can be happy with the course of this event. From a sportive perspective the competition probably only is a secondarily rated one in this Olympic year. Also, hardly any audience came to watch this all-around final.
From 30 gymnasts which had travelled to Athens only 21 took part in this all-around final, 24 gymnasts would have been qualified for it.
Also the third-ranked from the qualification Alexei Bondarenko couldn’t compete today. A couple of days ago he injured his hand while training a straddled salto on bars. He hardly managed to start in the qualification but then couldn’t compete anymore today.
In general for most participating nations this competition was of importance in order to test the conditions and not in order to achieve the best sportive results.

The best all-arounder today was Kensuke Murata from Japan who hardly made any mistakes. His strongest apparatus were vault (Kasamatsu 1/1 turn: 9.662) and bars (9.700): 54.499.
Maxim Deviatovski, 6th-ranked at the recent Russian Championships, also presented a good competition today. He started off with only a fair routine on rings but the following routines went better for him – especially bars with 9.587 - and he managed to reach the second place in the end: 56.011.

Conclusion:
An all-around with only a medium level of sportive performances. Top scores however can be given to the organisers in the Olympic city who presented a well-organised competition. It has been a good test for the Olympic events which certainly then will take place in front of sold-out audience ranks.

March 17th 2004: qualification men's all-around
30 gymnasts from 18 nations took part in this Pre-Olympic test in order to test the apparatus and the overall conditions. A bit of Olympic flair could already be noticed.

Results Qualification

From a sportive perspective today's competition has looked more like a training event: Many instabilities and it was obvious that the presure to present perfect performances has not been there for the athletes today. Only 22 participants competed a full all-around.
This however made the event to a great test event for the organisers. The score boards- system worked very well and in the second half of the competition also the provision of the press tribune (with only a few journalists however) was well organised. Communication extensions were not there and also in the press center only analog phone lines could be found. Digital/ISDN and internet connections are supposed to be there at the Olympics then.

Romania's Daniel Popescu started the competition very well with 9.537 on pommel horse. On this apparatus only Xiao, Qin from China could overtake him later with the highest score of the day 9.825. Qin started only on pommel horse. His team mate Feng, Jing is in Athens and was on the start list for parallel bars but in the end didn't compete.

Alexander Artemev – the young American gymnast with Russian parents - showed today that he could be a strong all-around gymnast in future: Being on the third rank already after the second rotation (9.550 on high bar) he even managed to overtake Bondarenko on pommel horse (9.350) and in the end stayed on rank 3 with the score of 55.549. Only rings still are a bit his weak event (missing sovereignty and difficulty in the strength elements) and due to this he couldn't reach an even higher all-around position.

His first place in the end of this qualification with the score of 56.225 in front of Romania's Selariu (56.036) and Artemev (55.549) was clear.
However, the final results in tomorrow's all-around final could look differently if less mistakes will be done by the other gymnasts.