内村航平
This was the 24th appearance of the event, which is one of the five apparatus events held every time there were apparatus events at the Summer Olympics (no apparatus events were held in 1900, 1908, 1912, or 1920). Four of the nine finalists from 2012 returned: silver medalist Marcel Nguyen of Germany, fifth-place finisher Daniel Corral of Mexico, eighth-place finisher Yusuke Tanaka of Japan, and ninth-place finisher Zhang Chenglong of China. The field was studded with stars. 2011 world champion Danell Leyva of the United States had been favored in 2012 before failing to make the final, had come in second in the 2014 world championship, and had been elevated from reserve after a teammate's injury. The 2013 world champions were Kōhei Uchimura of Japan and Lin Chaopan of China. The 2014 world champion (and 2015 runner-up) was Oleg Vernyayev of Ukraine. You Hao of China was the 2015 world champion.