-PreOlympic Story-

After the Olympic Trials (NHK Cup), the press and the public were paying keen attention to the Japanese Men's Olympic team. Team members were expected to win medals, hopefully gold medals, considering the good results of the World Championships in Anaheim last year. Regardless of the expectations, it seemed to be the best chance in these 12 years for Japan to win a gold medal in the Olympics.

The team had four training camps in Japan. The training camps were held at the Japan Institute of Sports Sciences, a very specialized place for the national team athletes of many kinds of sport. The Japan Gymnastics Association brought there the same apparatus as would be used in the Olympics. The apparatus was actually different from what the gymnasts used usually in their own gyms, so they needed to know how to adjust their skills to the different apparatus.

They improved their routines in the camps. The biggest change was in vault. In the trials, only three gymnasts did Driggs (laid out Kasamatsu with 1 and 1/2 twist) and some of them were not stable. This event was the first event for them in the qualification round in Athens, so the results in vault would be the key to the whole competition.

Kashima started to do a Driggs and became the one of the most reliable. Tomita missed his Driggs in the trials, but relearned it in the camps. The top four's total in this event could add 0.4 or more to the one in Anaheim if they hit all events. Actually vault was the weakest event according to the start value, but their improvement was big enough.

They opened the training camps to the press, Then they demonstrated their routines and some judges tested them. The tests in the camps were for the team final, so the gymnasts performed to the 6-3-3 format, without warming up. The three on each event were also selected according to this assumption. It was hard to decide who would be the three on rings, which was a weak event as well as vault. Tomita and Tsukahara were never in doubt, but everybody wondered who would be the third. It was Mizutori who joined the three and performed on rings as leadoff. He had improved his strength elements with a hard muscle training. He had a 10 start value on this event, and he knew his role for the team.

The team was not in good shape in these tests, and showed some fear of the Olympics. However, they prepared well. Before they reached Athens, they stayed in Germany to reduce jet lag and to have a final pre-olympic camp.

-QUALIFICATION-

Japan started the qualifying meet from vault in the final session. Generally starting from a leg event is easier than from an apparatus event. However, Japan had to concentrate, because the landing of the Driggs, which four gymnasts would perform, was forward and blind. The leadoff was Tsukahara and he hit his double twisting Yurchenko. Next was Kashima and he also hit his Driggs, which he had never used in a meet. The rest of them, Mizutori, Tomita and Yoneda, showed very clean Driggs. Tomita and Yoneda scored over 9.6. A great start for Japan!

On parallel bars, their good quality routines were evaluated highly by the judges. Nakano did not unveil his full-in dismount but showed his new routine including inverted giant (Welles) to high Tippelt and double pike dismount. Surprisingly the judges gave him 9.800, qualifying him for the event finals over Li Xiaopeng, the world champion. Tomita followed Nakano and got the second highest score of the event. Kashima slipped his hands after his Belle and had to do an extra swing, but the deduction was minimum and his score did not count in the total.

On horizontal bar, their routines were the most exciting for the crowd. It was the highlight of the day. The routines included stunning releases: Tomita, Nakano and Muzutori did a Kolman, and Yoneda and Kashima did "simple looking" Kovacs. However, the most important elements of their routines were the near-bar elements, such as full twisting piked Endo, full twisting el-grip Endo, etc. Their tight body lines never broke in the routines.

All of the scores on horizontal bar were extremely high, over 9.70. Yoneda was the top qualifier on this event, scoring 9.800 with a very smooth piked Stalder, Rivalko, full twisting el-grip giant and Kovacs. Nakano, scored 9.775, was third in the qualification. Tomita's score, 9.725 was, surprisingly, the lowest among these gymnasts; and the current world champion of this event, Kashima, did not qualify for event finals; two better Japanese had already qualified with higher scores, even though his 9.737 was ninth in the qualification. He could have gone to the finals if the delegation had wanted to switch the two qualified gymnasts. Please note that Kashima's performance was beautifully done as usual, but a step on his landing cost him a trip to the final!! Please imagine how strong the qualifiers were! (Tsukahara could not perform on this event due to 6-5-4 rule)

Just as in the Sydney Olympics, their floor routines were a disappointment. None of them except Tsukahara competed at Sydney, but they, as a team, repeated the very same weaknesses. Kashima slipped his hands after his Gogolaze and couldn't connect to the next element, a Fedrchenko. Tomita could not control his landings after the three consecutive somersaults, and was forced to stop after his second element. He was supposed to do back somersault with one and a half twist, full twisting layout front sommie, layout rudi, that would give him 0.5 bonus points. Due to his lack of the third element, he lost 0.3 points. These big deductions temporarily dropped Japan from the top of the qualification, but the other three gymnasts were excellent. Nakano, Tsukahara and Yoneda did not show fear or big mistakes. Tsukahara's double twisting double layout mount was very strong!

Due to two big errors they should have been more nervous than usual on pommel horse. The leadoff, Mizutori, touched the horse with his legs during an E flop and showed balance checks. A bad mood surrounded the team, but the deduction was not so big as to sink the team performance. However, Yoneda fell in his Sivado travel and dropped his rank in the all-around qualification; he had been in the top 3. Then it was Tsukahara who saved the team from trouble. His steady performance was as good as expected, and he knew what he had to do in this situation as a three time Olympian. Tomita followed Tsukahara's performance and Kashima, the world champion on this event, hit his routine gorgeously.

Finally rings came up on the last rotation. The scores, except for Tomita's, were considered not high compared to the scores in the competitions in Japan. However, Yoneda scored 9.625 even though he was the leadoff. Rings is not his favorite event, but his score pulled up the team's mood. Mizutori followed Yoneda and held his strength elements. Tsukahara and Tomita did very powerful routines. Nakano stunned the crowed with the sequence of Guzogy, giant, triple back dismount, but his landing was not stable; he took several steps backward and went off the mat. His low score did not count toward the team total, and Japan won the qualification!! The team was not in their best shape, but the judges evaluated their performances very highly. They must have gained a lot of confidence toward a gold medal...

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