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25 September 2000
Russia's Alexei Nemov clinched the 11th Olympic gymnastics medal of his career on Monday while Spain were equally delighted with their first.
Nemov won the final gold medal of the artistic programme, the men's horizontal bar, from France's Benjamin Varonian by the closest of margins after a complicated tiebreak calculation.
That took the men's all-around champion to a haul of six medals from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games - two golds, a silver and three bronzes - in addition to five won in 1996.
The Russian, who once complained that the hardest thing to overcome about gymnastics was the monotony of training, certainly produced something out of the ordinary for the crowd packing into the Sydney Superdome.
The double world champion started slowly, missing out in the men's vault won by Spaniard Gervasio Deferr, as the favourites faltered, and he took a bronze in the parallel bars.
But in the closing event, he was back to his best in the horizontal bar and raised his hand in acknowledgment as the crowd chanted "Alexei, Alexei."
He scored 9.787 but Varonian, who followed right afterwards, matched that exactly. Under the tiebreak system, deducting a series of averages, the two remained level until the fifth of six criteria was applied.
Varonian seemed happy with the silver and the knowledge he had been beaten by one of the greats, who also won a silver last week on the floor and bronzes in the team event and pommel.
Happy Spaniards
"It was a difficult day," Nemov acknowledged afterwards. "I had a hard time concentrating at first because I had not been able to train and prepare for my routine.
"There was a short preparation without any training and then you just went into action."
Deferr was the first Spaniard to win an Olympic artistic gymnastics medal, although Jesus Carballo is current world champion at horizontal bar.
Deferr warned that there were more male champions to come.
"I think it is very important for us all," said the Barcelona student, who won a silver in the floor exercise at the last world championships.
"This is only the beginning. We should consider these Olympics as just a first step."
His team's assistant coach Alfredo Hueto Mayoral confessed that Spain had hoped for two medals from the gymnastics but said he was delighted to put the sport further on the map in a country where soccer is king.
Russian Alexei Bondarenko stumbled slightly on landing but took silver in the men's vault, with Poland's Leszek Blanik finishing third.
China's Li Xiaopeng won the men's parallel bars gold medal, with South Korean Lee Joo-Hyung taking silver.
There was big disappointment for Belarus, the United States and Japan as their final men's medal hopes vanished.
Ivan Ivankov, one of the sport's greatest names, left Sydney without a medal in a further blow to his career. The gold medal favourite was forced to miss the 1996 Games because of an Achilles tendon injury suffered just before they started.
The US had high hopes in Blaine Wilson in the vault but he landed awkwardly and was forced to step back on landing.
He finished sixth, leaving the US without an Olympic gymnastics medal for the first time since 1972 Munich Games.
By Alan Baldwin
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