Harry Hepworth became a bronze medallist in the men’s vault on his Olympic debut after a tense eight-man final on Sunday when the reigning world champion and Hepworth’s Team GB teammate, Jake Jarman, missed the podium by less than two hundredths of a point.
Hepworth, competing second, secured Britain’s first medal in the men’s version of the discipline with a dragulescu and a handspring two and a half twist, then faced a nervy wait to see if his two-vault average of 14.949 would be enough.
“It was one of the most agonising waits of my life, oh my,” the 20‑year‑old from Leeds said. “I don’t know, I was going to try and go to the toilet midway through to skip it [the wait].”
Breakout star Carlos Edriel Yulo of the Philippines secured his second gold of these Paris Olympics with a two-vault average of 15.116. The 24-year-old drilled his ri se gwang vault to stake the gold position at the halfway mark in front of Hepworth and Jarman, then remained on top with an impressive kasamatsu double twist. That order held until the final attempt of the day when Armenia’s Artur Davtyan snatched silver with a superb two and a half twist. Davtyan’s combined score of 14.966 dropped Hepworth down to bronze and Jarman (14.933) cruelly out of the medals.
Yulo’s second gold in 24 hours after the floor exercise title on Saturday was a boost for a country that had won only one gold in its history across all sports before the weekend. “I’m grateful for the people who truly believed in me through the ups and downs,” Yulo said. “This one is the sweetest I think. This experience is so crazy. I don’t know what to feel right now. I’m just so grateful that I’m healthy, that I enjoyed it. This one is so special for me.”
The history did not end there. Earlier the Algerian teenager Kaylia Nemour became the first gymnast representing Africa to win an Olympic medal, soaring to the gold with a dazzling routine on the uneven bars to beat China’s Qiu Qiyuan. Suni Lee of the USA, who spent much of the past two years battling a pair of kidney diseases, picked up her third medal of the week and sixth of her Olympic career by taking bronze, matching her third-place finish from Tokyo three years ago.
“I am very, very, very happy with what I was able to do today,” Nemour said. “I am still a little shocked because I do not believe that I am an Olympic champion on the uneven bars. It was my ultimate dream, years of work and hard work, details. I think it is really crazy and I am really honoured to have been able to win this medal, first for me and for Algeria too.”
Nemour’s glory might have belonged to the host nation had things played out differently in recent years. Although she was born in France, where she lives and trains, she became embroiled in a dispute with the French gymnastics federation and Nemour’s club of Avoine Beaumont over her recovery from knee surgery, which led her to embrace her father’s Algerian nationality.
The uneven bars specialist, 17, who posted the highest score on the apparatus during Thursday’s all-around final and was in the medal mix entering the final rotation, put down an equally superb set on Sunday to hold off Qiu, whose athletically and technically demanding routine wowed the crowd of more than 10,000.
Before that China’s Liu Yang retained his Olympic title on the rings in a tightly contested final, posting a score of 15.300 to edge his teammate Zou Jingyuan by 0.067 points.
The 29-year-old Liu became the third man to win multiple Olympic titles in the discipline, joining Albert Azaryan of Russia and Akinori Nakayama of Japan. Eleftherios Petrounias of Greece took bronze with a score of 15.100, marking the third successive Olympics where he has won a medal in the event.
“I feel there were still some flaws in today’s routine,” Liu said. “As a perfectionist, it wasn’t perfect enough for me. But I’m very happy to have won a gold medal for China. I’m about to be 30 years old and have been competing for over a decade, so I’m used to any competing order. Zou Jingyuan performed first today despite his shoulder injury, showing great resilience. We both approached it like a regular training session.”
Samir Aït Saïd of France finished fourth, eight years after breaking his left leg on the vault in Rio. Saïd, who already has committed to trying to make it to the Los Angeles Olympics in four years’ time, was the clear crowd favourite whose score of 15.000 was jeered when it flashed on the screen.
