Gymnastics at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's parallel bars

Men's parallel bars at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
Beijing National Indoor Stadium
Dates	9 August (qualifying) 19 August (final)
Competitors	75 from 27 nations
Winning score	16.425
Medalists
Li Xiaopeng  China Yoo Won-Chul  South Korea Anton Fokin  Uzbekistan
← 2004 2012 →

Gymnastics at the 2008 Summer Olympics
List of gymnasts Qualification
Artistic
Qualification	men	women
Team all-around	men	women
Individual all-around	men	women
Vault	men	women
Floor	men	women
Pommel horse	men
Rings	men
Parallel bars	men
Horizontal bar	men
Uneven bars		women
Balance beam		women
Rhythmic
Group all-around		women
Individual all-around		women
Trampoline
Individual	men	women
v t e

The men's

won Uzbekistan's first parallel bars medal in its debut as an independent nation.

Background

This was the 22nd appearance of the event, which is one of the five apparatus events held every time there were apparatus events at the Summer Olympics (no apparatus events were held in 1900, 1908, 1912, or 1920). Four of the eight finalists from 2004 returned: gold medalist

Uzbekistan and Venezuela each made their debut in the men's parallel bars. The United States made its 20th appearance, most of any nation; the Americans had missed only the inaugural 1896 event and the boycotted 1980 Games.

Qualification

Qualification for the men's artistic gymnastics in 2008 was based entirely on the 2007 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships. The top 12 teams at the world championships could send a full team of 6 gymnasts to the Olympics. The next 3 teams (#13 through #15) could send 2 gymnasts. The 3 teams after that (#16 through #18) could send 1 gymnast. The next 7 individual gymnasts (only from nations without any qualified gymnasts yet) and apparatus gold medal winners also qualified. The FIG Executive Board made invitational selections to ensure host country and continental representation and the Tripartite Commission made an invitation. The quota of 98 gymnasts was then filled through additional individual gymnasts.

Competition format

The 1996 gymnastics competition had introduced the "7–6–5" format, in which each team had 7 members, designated 6 for each apparatus, and had 5 count for team scores. In 2000, this was reduced across the board to a "6–5–4" format; the 2008 competition kept this format. Further, while in 1996 all 7 team members could compete on each apparatus for individual purposes, since 2000 only the 5 designated for that apparatus competed. The 2000 competition had also eliminated the compulsory exercises; only voluntary exercises were done on each apparatus. The qualifying round scores were used for qualification for the team all-around, individual all-around, and apparatus finals.

The top eight gymnasts, with a limit of two per nation, advanced to the final. Non-finalists were ranked 9th through 75th based on preliminary score. The preliminary score had no effect on the final; once the eight finalists were selected, their ranking depended only on the final exercise.^[1][2]

Scoring in artistic gymnastics under the

is based on two separate scores that are then combined in order to come to the final score. The D score measures the difficulty of each element (and combinations of elements) within the routine, while the E score evaluates the performance, ie, the "execution, composition and artistry" of the routine.

Schedule

All times are

)

Date	Time	Round
Saturday, 9 August 2008	12:00	Qualifying
Monday, 19 August 2008	18:00	Final

Results

Qualifying

The top 8 gymnasts, with a limit of 2 per nation, qualified for the final.

Final

Rank	Gymnast	Nation	D Score	E Score	Pen.	Total
	Li Xiaopeng	China	6.900	9.550		16.450
	Yoo Won-Chul	South Korea	7.000	9.250		16.250
	Anton Fokin	Uzbekistan	6.800	9.400		16.200
4	Fabian Hambüchen	Germany	6.900	9.075		15.975
5	Mitja Petkovšek	Slovenia	6.800	8.925		15.725
6	Huang Xu	China	7.000	8.700		15.700
7	Yang Tae-Young	South Korea	7.000	8.650		15.650
8	Nikolay Kryukov	Russia	6.700	8.450		15.150

References

• Qualification results
• Final results