Horse Vault, Men

South Korea’s Yang Hak-Seon, reigning World and Asian Games Champion, was the favorite to win gold in the men’s horse vault at the 2012 Summer Olympics, particularly after his closest rival Thomas Bouhail of France, 2008 Olympic silver medalist, 2009 and 2011 European Champion, and 2010 World Champion, suffered an injury to his leg that made his return to gymnastics uncertain. Flavius Koczi of Romania, the reigning European Champion and the 2009 world runner-up, was a potential medal favorite, but no one was seen as a true obstacle on the South Korean’s path to the Olympic crown. In the qualification round, however, Denis Ablyazin of Russia, bronze medalist in the vault at the most recent European Championships and the floor exercise at the London Games, posted the highest score, with 16.366 to Yang’s 16.333. Enrique González of Chile, who had already made history by placing fourth in the floor exercises in his country’s first appearance in Olympic gymnastics, finished a surprising third in the qualifications.

Koczi went first in the final, suffering penalties and finishing with a score of 15.633, which would not have been sufficient to qualify in the earlier round. It was not until halfway through the competition that a true bar was set by Ihor Radivilov of Ukraine, the 2012 European runner-up, with a total of 16.316. He was surpassed by Ablyazin, who posted 16.399, while González slid into third place with 16.183. Yang was the final gymnast and he chose the highest-difficult vault of the competition, 7.400, for his opener, but stepped forwards on his landing and received a low execution score of 9.066. His score for the first was still 16.466, however, higher than any other. Now in a good position to win gold, he eased the difficulty of his second vault down to 7.000, but performed it with sterling execution and earned a score of 16.600, more than enough to become South Korea’s first Olympic gymnastics champion.