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SYDNEY, SEPT. 25. The Men's all-around gymnastics champion Alexei Nemov won the horizontal bar title here on Monday, giving the 24- year-old Russian the biggest medal haul among all Olympic athletes for the second Games in a row.
Nemov also won a bronze on parallel bars during the last day of gymnastics competition to finish with six medals and just missed a seventh by finishing fourth in the vault, an event where he had been the reigning Olympic champion. The Sydney medal count for Nemov also includes all-around gold, silver in the floor exercise and prior bronzes in team and pommel horse.
``I feel Lucky, just very lucky,'' Nemov said. I came to the Olympics hoping that I would be able to win one medal, any medal. And I wanted to perform well. I did not expect to perform so well. Everything went my way.``
Nemov also captured six medals at the 1996 Olympics, including gold in team and vault, silver in all-around and bronzes in horizontal bar, pommel horse and floor exercise.
A spectacular performance on the bar topped by a high backflip release move gave Nemov a golden finish with 9.787 points. France's Benjamin Varonian had the same total but Nemov won as a result of better overall placings by judges.
Nemov plans to compete next at the World Cup in December in Glasgow, Scotland, but will spend most of the next six months relaxing and celebrating. ''I must take some time off,`` he said. ''I'm not made of steel. I'm not a robot.``
In other apparatus finals, Elena Zamolodtchikova edged Russian teammate Svetlana Khorkina for the floor exercise crown, China's Liu Xuan won the balance beam, China's Li Xiaopeng won on parallel bars and Gervasio Deferr, 19, won Spain's first-ever Olympic gymnastics medal, taking gold in the vault.
On a day when most vaulters struggled with landings, Deferr scored 9.712 points with Russia's Alexey Bondarenko second at 9.587 and Poland's Leszek Blanik third at 9.475, edging Nemov for bronze by .019. ''I thought I had a chance, but I wasn't really thinking of winning,`` Deferr said.
Nemov landed on his rear on his first vault, a tucked double somersault which received a 9.262. His second try, a handspring into a twisting flip, ended with only a small step backwards, leaving him just short of the podium. ''I worked like an automation,`` Nemov said. ''I did not think about what I was doing.``
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