Yang Wei wins gold on night of 1,000 errors

Bizarre mistakes were the norm of the men's gymnastics all-around.  First, Japan's Kohei Uchimura, who had been in the lead, fell off the pommel horse, twice.  Then, Japan's other gymnast, Hiroyuki Tomita, slipped off the rings in the middle of his dismount.  He fell awkwardly to the ground, yet somehow escaped injury.  America's Jonathan Horton made a mistake on the pommel horse and South Korea's Kim Daeeun took a large step out of bounds on his vault.  South Korean Yang Taeyoung, the athlete in the middle of the Paul Hamm gold medal controversy in Athens, fell on the pommel horse and Germany's Fabian Hambuechen missed the high bar on a release move.  More often than not, gymnasts were taking steps on their landings.  It was just ugly gymnastics. 

Still, with all of these errors, China's Yang Wei earned the gold medal by not just being competent, but hitting his difficult routines.  His vault, rings and parallel bars routine all earned scores over 16.  Uchimura won silver after battling back from his disaster on the pommel horse, and France's Benoit Caranube won bronze by having a consistent competition with few mistakes. 

Horton and Alexander Artemev, Team USA's representatives in the all-around, could not carry momentum from Monday's team bronze.  With comparatively low start values, the American athletes had to be perfect, and they weren't.  Horton, who finished ninth, only had one plus-16 score, 16.1 on the vault, while Artemev, finishing 12th didn't have any.