Parallel Bars, Men

The format was the same as it had been from 1984-96, with eight gymnasts advancing from the team all-around, but no more than two per nation. Li Xiaopeng’s best event was parallel bars, and he had won the 1998 Asian Games and World Cup on the bars. His biggest competition was expected to come from 1999 World Champion Lee Ju-Hyeong of Korea. In this event, the chalk held, as Li won the gold medal and Lee the silver medal, while Russia’s Aleksey Nemov, the all-around champion, won bronze. Li would also win the parallel bars at the 2000 World Cup, the 2002-03 World Championships, the 2006 World Cup, and after winning a bronze medal at the 2004 Olympics, he would win his second parallel bars gold medal at the 2008 Olympics. When Li did that, he became the first gymnast ever to win two medals on the same apparatus, but not consecutively.