Gymnastics at the 2008 Summer Olympics

Gymnastics at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Artistic
Qualification		men		women
Team all-around		men		women
Individual all-around		men		women
Vault		men		women
Floor		men		women
Pommel horse		men
Rings		men
Parallel bars		men
Horizontal bar		men
Uneven bars				women
Balance beam				women
Rhythmic
Team all-around				women
Individual all-around				women
Trampoline
Individual		men		women

At the 2008 Summer Olympics, three different gymnastics disciplines were contested: artistic gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline. The artistic gymnastics events were held at the Beijing National Indoor Stadium on August 9–19. The rhythmic gymnastics events were held at the Beijing University of Technology Gymnasium on August 21–24. The trampoline events were also held at the Beijing National Indoor Stadium on August 16–19.

Competition schedule

All times are China Standard Time (UTC+8)

Artistic gymnastics

Date	Time	Event
Saturday, August 9, 2008	12:00 - 14:00	Men's Qualification - Subdivision 1
	16:00 - 18:00	Men's Qualification - Subdivision 2
	20:00 - 22:00	Men's Qualification - Subdivision 3
Sunday, August 10, 2008	10:00 - 11:30	Women's Qualification - Subdivision 1
	13:30 - 15:00	Women's Qualification - Subdivision 2
	17:00 - 18:30	Women's Qualification - Subdivision 3
	20:00 - 21:30	Women's Qualification - Subdivision 4
Tuesday, August 12, 2008	10:00 - 12:30	Men's Team Final
Wednesday, August 13, 2008	10:30 - 12:00	Women's Team Final
Thursday, August 14, 2008	11:00 - 13:30	Men's Individual All-Around Final
Friday, August 15, 2008	11:15 - 13:00	Women's Individual All-Around Final
Sunday, August 17, 2008	18:00 - 18:30	Men's Floor Exercise Final
	18:46 - 19:15	Women's Vault Final
	19:33 - 20:00	Men's Pommel Horse Final
	20:19 - 20:45	Women's Floor Exercise Final
Monday, August 18, 2008	18:00 - 18:30	Men's Rings Final
	18:46 - 19:15	Women's Uneven Bars Final
	19:33 - 20:00	Men's Vault Final
Tuesday, August 19, 2008	18:00 - 18:30	Men's Parallel Bars Final
	18:46 - 19:15	Women's Balance Beam Final
	19:33 - 20:00	Men's Horizontal Bar Final

Rhythmic gymnastics

Date	Time	Event
Thursday, August 21, 2008	18:00 - 20:30	Individual All-Around Qualification
	20:30 - 21:30	Group All-Around Qualification
Friday, August 22, 2008	18:00 - 20:30	Individual All-Around Qualification
	20:30 - 21:30	Group All-Around Qualification
Saturday, August 23, 2008	18:00 - 20:00	Individual All-Around Final
Sunday, August 24, 2008	11:00 - 12:15	Group All-Around Final

Medal summary

Artistic gymnastics

Men's events

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Team all-around	China (CHN) Chen Yibing Huang Xu Li Xiaopeng Xiao Qin Yang Wei Zou Kai	Japan (JPN) Takehiro Kashima Takuya Nakase Makoto Okiguchi Koki Sakamoto Hiroyuki Tomita Kōhei Uchimura	United States (USA) Alexander Artemev Raj Bhavsar Joseph Hagerty Jonathan Horton Justin Spring Kai Wen Tan
Individual all-around	Yang Wei  China	Kōhei Uchimura  Japan	Benoît Caranobe  France
Floor exercise	Zou Kai  China	Gervasio Deferr  Spain	Anton Golotsutskov  Russia
Horizontal bar	Zou Kai  China	Jonathan Horton  United States	Fabian Hambüchen  Germany
Parallel bars	Li Xiaopeng  China	Yoo Won-Chul  South Korea	Anton Fokin  Uzbekistan
Pommel horse	Xiao Qin  China	Filip Ude  Croatia	Louis Smith  Great Britain
Rings	Chen Yibing  China	Yang Wei  China	Oleksandr Vorobiov  Ukraine
Vault	Leszek Blanik  Poland	Thomas Bouhail  France	Anton Golotsutskov  Russia

Women's events

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Team all-around	China (CHN) Cheng Fei Deng Linlin He Kexin Jiang Yuyuan Li Shanshan Yang Yilin	United States (USA) Shawn Johnson Nastia Liukin Chellsie Memmel Samantha Peszek Alicia Sacramone Bridget Sloan	Romania (ROU) Andreea Acatrinei Gabriela Drăgoi Andreea Grigore Sandra Izbaşa Steliana Nistor Anamaria Tămârjan
Individual all-around	Nastia Liukin  United States	Shawn Johnson  United States	Yang Yilin  China
Balance beam	Shawn Johnson  United States	Nastia Liukin  United States	Cheng Fei  China
Floor exercise	Sandra Izbaşa  Romania	Shawn Johnson  United States	Nastia Liukin  United States
Uneven bars	He Kexin  China	Nastia Liukin  United States	Yang Yilin  China
Vault	Hong Un Jong  North Korea	Oksana Chusovitina  Germany	Cheng Fei  China

The group of top six AA female qualifiers face the judges before the start of competition.

Rhythmic gymnastics

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Group all-around	Russia (RUS) Margarita Aliychuk Anna Gavrilenko Tatiana Gorbunova Elena Posevina Darya Shkurihina Natalia Zueva	China (CHN) Cai Tongtong Chou Tao Lü Yuanyang Sui Jianshuang Sun Dan Zhang Shuo	Belarus (BLR) Olesya Babushkina Anastasia Ivankova Ksenia Sankovich Zinaida Lunina Glafira Martinovich Alina Tumilovich
Individual all-around	Yevgeniya Kanayeva  Russia	Inna Zhukova  Belarus	Anna Bessonova  Ukraine

Trampoline

Event	Gold	Silver	Bronze
Men's individual	Lu Chunlong  China	Jason Burnett  Canada	Dong Dong  China
Women's individual	He Wenna  China	Karen Cockburn  Canada	Ekaterina Khilko  Uzbekistan

Medal table

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China (CHN)	11	2	5	18
2	United States (USA)	2	6	2	10
3	Russia (RUS)	2	0	2	4
4	Romania (ROU)	1	0	1	2
5	North Korea (PRK)	1	0	0	1
	Poland (POL)	1	0	0	1
7	Canada (CAN)	0	2	0	2
	Japan (JPN)	0	2	0	2
9	Belarus (BLR)	0	1	1	2
	France (FRA)	0	1	1	2
	Germany (GER)	0	1	1	2
12	Croatia (CRO)	0	1	0	1
	South Korea (KOR)	0	1	0	1
	Spain (ESP)	0	1	0	1
15	Ukraine (UKR)	0	0	2	2
	Uzbekistan (UZB)	0	0	2	2
17	Great Britain (GBR)	0	0	1	1
Total		18	18	18	54

Qualification

Champions Gala

The traditional Gymnastics Champions Gala took place on August 20 at the National Indoor Stadium. Participants are mainly selected from the 2008 Olympic trampoline and artistic gymnastics, as well as medalists from world championships. In addition, some Chinese pop stars appeared in the Gala.

The performances included Olympic disciplines such as floor exercise, pommel horse, rings, parallel bars, horizontal bar, uneven bars, balance beam, rhythmic gymnastics and trampoline gymnastics; non-Olympic discipline such as tumbling and acrobatic; and art performances such as dancing, martial art, instrument performance and chorus.

Age controversy

After initially accepting the ages of all members of the Chinese women's gymnastic team, on August 21, 2008 the IOC. instructed the International Gymnastics Federation, known as the FIG., to investigate allegations that China's dual gold medal-winning gymnast He Kexin was underaged and therefore ineligible to compete during the Olympic gymnastics competition.^[1] The FIG was instructed to take up the issue with the Chinese gymnastics federation and report back to the IOC later on Friday, August 22.^[2] Currently, the FIG requires that all gymnasts be at least 16 years of age in the Olympic calendar year.^[1] The IOC had initially accepted the ages of all the Chinese participants, but new documents surfaced placing He Kexin's birth year at 1994, not 1992 as initially reported on her Chinese passport.^[1] This would place her at age 14 and ineligible for competition.^[1] According to online sports registration lists in China, four members of the six-person team — He Kexin, Yang Yilin, Jiang Yuyuan, and Deng Linlin — would be underage.^[2] The FIG, however, previously said that those gymnasts were eligible and that the ages on their passports were correct.^[2]

The investigation was initiated after an American blogger and hacker identified as Mike Walker allegedly discovered a cached official Excel spreadsheet showing He Kexin's birthday as January 1, 1994.^[1][3] His discoveries support earlier reports from The New York Times^[2] and other online bloggers regarding He Kexin's age discrepancy. Earlier, several bloggers found links to news stories and photo captions - in both English and Chinese published in 2007 and in early 2008 in several publications, including the state-run Xinhua news service, which cited He Kexin's age as 13.^[1] One cached version of a story published in May 2008 referred to her as being aged 14.^[1]

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said on Sunday, August 24 that "at first glance", the paperwork supplied by the Chinese Federation supported the position, that all six members of its gold medal women's gymnastics team were old enough to compete at the Beijing Games. However, the FIG continued to investigate the age controversy, and requested additional information on every member of the team except for Cheng Fei.

On October 1, 2008, the FIG ended their second investigation and concluded that He Kexin and her teammates from the 2008 Olympic games were old enough to compete.^[4] Though some American media outlets have voiced doubts about the decision,^[5][6][7] the gymnasts have been cleared by the FIG of any wrongdoing.

In 2014, North Korean female gymnast Cha Yong-hwa was a subject of disciplinary hearing because of false passport used to falsify her age. The FIG decided to withdraw her license and nullify all her results, including the results from 2008 Olympics.^[8]

See also

• Olympic medalists in gymnastics (men)
• Olympic medalists in gymnastics (women)
• 2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships
• Underage Gymnasts Controversy at 2008 Summer Olympics

References

1. Hutcheon, Stephen (2008-08-22). "IOC calls for investigation into gymnast's age". smh.com.au. Retrieved 2008-08-22.
2. Macur, Juliet (2008-08-22). "I.O.C. Asks for Inquiry of Chinese Gymnasts". nytimes.com. Retrieved 2008-08-22.
3. Tim Reid (2008-08-22). "International Olympic Committee launches probe into He Kexin's age". London: timesonline.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-08-22.
4. The Associated Press (October 1, 2008). "Ruling Backs Chinese Gymnists". New York Times. Retrieved 2008-10-01.
5. Brennan, Christine (October 1, 2008). "Maybe now China will quit cheating". USA Today. Retrieved 2008-10-22.
6. Gillon, Doug (2 October 2008). "China cleared of age concerns but questions left over Sydney squad". The Herald. Retrieved 27 October 2008.
7. Dahlberg, Tim (27 September 2008). "Wasting time looking for underage gymnasts". Yahoo! Sports. Retrieved 21 December 2008.
8. "FIG bans North Korean gymnast for age cheating".

External links

• Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics
• Federation Internationale de Gymnastique