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August 16, 2004

How’s the Men’s Gymnastics Team Doing in Athens?
The USA Team finished second overall in the qualification round with a team score of 230.419. Japan finished just ahead of them with a first place score of 232.134. Romania qualified in third place, followed by China. Rounding out the team qualifiers is Ukraine, Russia, Korea and Germany.

These eight teams will compete Monday August 16th in the Men’s Team Final where Paul Hamm will compete in five of the six events (floor exercise, pommel horse, vault, parallel bars and high bar), while Blaine Wilson and Jason Gatson were each selected to compete in still rings and parallel bars.

Additionally, Paul Hamm qualified in first place with a score of 58.061 to compete in the individual all around finals which will be held Wednesday evening, August 18. His quest for gold is being chased by Korea’s second place qualifier (Tae Young Yang) and Japan’s third place qualifier, Hiroyuki Tomita.

As for event finals, which will be held August 22nd and 23rd, Paul Hamm qualified in four events (floor exercise, pommel horse, parallel bars and high bar). Hamm’s success in this first night of competition gave him more event final berths than any other male gymnast.

Jason Gatson:
On the team: “We made a few mistakes, but that was expected. We look to improve on Monday.”

On Blaine’s fall on high bar: “He hit his head when he fell and it rung his bell so the high bar coaches decided to rest him to be safe. He came back on rings to help the team.”

On his own performance: “I performed okay, but I’m not totally happy. I need to improve on the rings. The team fought and I fought and we got to our goal today and hope to improve on Monday.”

Paul Hamm:
“We had a good performance. I think it was what we expected, but not perfect. I think it was good that we didn’t have the best day so we can improve on Monday.”
“We need to improve on the pommel horse, be more aggressive for myself as well as the team.”