The men's parallel bars competition was one of eight events for male competitors in artistic gymnastics at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. The qualification and final rounds took place on July 29, 31 and August 4 at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion. There were 71 competitors from 19 nations, with nations competing in the team event having 6 gymnasts while other nations could have to up to 3 gymnasts.[1] The event was won by Bart Conner of the United States, the nation's first victory in the parallel bars since 1904 and second overall. Another American, Mitch Gaylord, took bronze. Japan returned to the podium after the 1980 boycott broke its six-Games medal (and four-Games gold medal) streak, with Nobuyuki Kajitani's silver.
Background
This was the 16th 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). None of the six finalists from 1980 returned; all six were from boycotting nations. American Bart Conner had won the 1979 world championship, missing the 1980 Games due to the boycott. Koji Gushiken of Japan and Lou Yun of China had shared the 1981 and 1983 world championships, respectively, with Soviet gymnasts. Thus, even without the Soviets, there was a strong and competitive field for the event.[1]
The People's Republic of China and San Marino each made their debut in the men's parallel bars. The United States made its 14th appearance, breaking a tie with the absent Hungary for most of any nation; the Americans had missed only the inaugural 1896 event and the boycotted 1980 Games.
Competition format
Each nation entered a team of six gymnasts or up to three individual gymnasts. All entrants in the gymnastics competitions performed both a compulsory exercise and a voluntary exercise for each apparatus. The scores for all 12 exercises were summed to give an individual all-around score. These exercise scores were also used for qualification for the apparatus finals. The two exercises (compulsory and voluntary) for each apparatus were summed to give an apparatus score.
The 1984 Games expanded the number of finalists from six to eight. Nations were still limited to two finalists each. Others were ranked 9th through 71st. Half of the preliminary score carried over to the final.[1][2]
Seventy-one gymnasts competed in the compulsory and optional rounds on July 29 and 31. The eight highest scoring gymnasts advanced to the final on August 4. Each country was limited to two competitors in the final. Half of the points earned by each gymnast during both the compulsory and optional rounds carried over to the final. This constitutes the "prelim" score.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
