PARIS — Winning an is difficult. Difficulty doesn’t have to be what keeps the from winning one, however. Since the Tokyo Olympics, where they finished fifth for a third straight Games, the Americans have prioritized making their routines harder in hopes of breaking what is now a 16-year medal drought.
You can do the most beautiful gymnastics in the world and it won’t matter if your skills aren’t as difficult as what the top teams are doing. “I hate to say that about Tokyo but yeah, that was kind of what that was,” said , referring to the 7-point gap between the U.S.
men and China, the bronze medalists. In the , there is one score for the difficulty value of a routine and another for how well it’s executed. The still lag well behind Japan and China, perennial favorites in men’s gymnastics.
But with no Russia, which won the team title both in Tokyo and at the world championships before it, the bronze medal is there for the taking. According to neutraldeductions.com, a website devoted to men’s gymnastics, the U.
S. men have a potential difficulty score of 105.60 in the team final, where three gymnasts compete on each event and all three scores.
That’s exactly one point less than Ukraine and 0.60 points ahead of Britain. “It's just scoring,” said.
“You can see our scores are much higher as a team scenario than they ever have been in the past.” The fifth-place finishes in London and Rio were disappointing because the U.S.
men had finished first and secon.
