Uneven Bars, Women

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. Russia’s Svetlana Khorkina had been the world’s top gymnast since the 1997 Olympics and the uneven bars were her best event. Unfortunately, in the team qualifying she had fallen off the bars, scored only a 9.000, and placed 29th. But the rules now allowed teams to substitute a gymnast into the finals, as long as they had a finals qualifier, and Russia had two. Yelena Produnova led the qualifying, but Yelena Zamolodchikova had placed only eighth, and she would have to watch, as she was bypassed in favor of Khorkina. Khorkina had also fallen off the bars in the individual all-around so her form was suspect, but she returned to her norm in the uneven bars final, scoring a 9.862 to win the gold.

The other medals went to the two Chinese finalists, Ling Jie and Yun Yang. Ling had won a bronze medal on the bars at the 1999 Worlds, behind Khorkina, while Yun was best known as a one-time love interest of China’s 2008 Olympic all-around gold medalist Yang Wei. Like her teammate, Dong Fangxiao, Yun was suspected of being underage at the 2000 Olympics, but the 2010 investigation by the Fédération Internationale de Gymnastique (FIG) was inconclusive in her case.