The men's individual all-around competition was one of eight events for male competitors in artistic gymnastics at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. The qualification and final rounds took place on July 20, 22 and 24th at the Georgia Dome. There were 111 competitors from 31 nations. Each nation could enter a team of 7 gymnasts (up from 6 in previous Games) or up to 3 individual gymnasts. The event was won by Li Xiaoshuang of China, the nation's first victory in the event and first medal of any color since 1984. Two nations making their debut as independent nations after the dissolution of the Soviet Union took silver (Alexei Nemov of Russia) and bronze (Vitaly Scherbo of Belarus). Scherbo had won the event as a member of the Unified Team in 1992; he was the 11th man to earn multiple all-around medals.
Background
This was the 22nd appearance of the men's individual all-around. The first individual all-around competition had been held in 1900, after the 1896 competitions featured only individual apparatus events. A men's individual all-around has been held every Games since 1900.
Seven of the top 10 gymnasts from the 1992 Games returned: gold medalist Vitaly Scherbo of the Unified Team (now representing Belarus), bronze medalist Valery Belenky of the Unified Team (now competing for Germany), fourth-place finisher Andreas Wecker of Germany, fifth-place finisher Li Xiaoshuang of China, eighth-place finisher Lee Joo-Hyung of South Korea, and ninth-place finishers Han Yun-su of South Korea and Szilveszter Csollány of Hungary. Li was the reigning (1995) World Champion; Scherbo had won in 1993, taken third in 1994, and finished second behind Li in 1995. Li recognized Alexei Nemov of Russia (relatively unknown in all-around but with strong results in each apparatus at the 1996 World Championships, which had no all-around event) as a bigger contender in Atlanta than Scherbo, however.
Armenia, Barbados, Belarus, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine each made their debut in the event. France made its 20th appearance, most among nations.
Competition format
The 1996 competition followed the revised format from 1992, which ended the carryover of preliminary scores to the final. The preliminary round and final round were separate. In the preliminary round (which also served as the team all-around competition as well as the qualifying round for the individual apparatus events), each gymnast performed a compulsory exercise and an optional exercise on each apparatus. (Many gymnasts from nations competing in the team event opted not to compete on each apparatus, as the team event required designating only 6 of the 7 as team competitors on each apparatus, reducing the incentive for specialists on one apparatus to compete on all others.) The scores for all 12 exercises were summed to give an individual all-around preliminary score. The top 36 gymnasts advanced to the individual all-around final—except that each nation was limited to 3 finalists. There, each of the finalists performed another exercise on each apparatus. The sum of these six exercise scores resulted in a final total. Each exercise was scored from 0 to 10; thus, the preliminary apparatus scores ranged from 0 to 20 each and the total preliminary score from 0 to 120. The final total, with six exercises, was from 0 to 60.
Schedule
All times are Eastern Daylight Time (UTC-4)
Date Time Round Saturday, 20 July 1996 18:21 Preliminary: Compulsory Monday, 22 July 1996 18:31 Preliminary: Voluntary Wednesday, 24 July 1996 16:26 Final
Results
All 111 gymnasts were ranked by their totals in the preliminary round, though only 74 completed all 12 exercises during the all-around during the compulsory and optional rounds on July 20 and 22.Official Report, p. 234. The 36 highest scoring gymnasts advanced to the final on July 24. Each country was limited to three competitors in the final.
Rank Gymnast Nation Prelim Floor Pommelhorse Rings Vault Parallelbars Horizontalbar Total Li Xiaoshuang 114.786 9.6879.7129.7759.8129.6509.78758.423 Alexei Nemov 116.361 9.7009.8009.6129.7009.7629.80058.374 Vitaly Scherbo 115.210 9.7629.6629.5879.6879.7129.78758.197 4 Zhang Jinjing 114.596 9.6379.7509.5629.6509.76258.148 5 Shen Jian 114.223 9.5379.6509.6379.6629.7009.67557.861 6 Valeri Belenki 113.910 9.6129.7629.6129.6009.6259.63757.848 7 John Roethlisberger 114.886 9.6759.6629.6509.5759.4759.72557.762 8 Rustam Sharipov 114.372 9.6259.6379.6509.4009.7509.65057.712 9 Oleksandr Svitlychniy 113.886 9.6509.5879.6629.5379.6259.63757.698 10 Blaine Wilson 114.337 9.6009.6379.7379.6009.4509.66257.686 11 Cristian Leric 112.186 9.6259.5629.4129.7009.6009.67557.574 12 Naoya Tsukahara 114.147 9.6129.6129.6509.5129.6259.55057.561 13 Andreas Wecker 114.474 9.6009.0259.7509.6629.6009.77557.412 Jesus Carballo 111.761 9.4009.6759.5129.4509.6259.750 15 Yoshiaki Hatakeda 113.174 9.4259.6379.4879.3509.6129.70057.211 Igor Korobchinski 113.473 9.4509.6259.4629.5129.6759.487 17 Yordan Yovchev 114.898 9.6509.6009.7379.3759.0509.71257.124 Jury Chechi 112.186 9.4509.5879.8009.0509.5509.687 19 Hikaru Tanaka 113.649 9.5629.4509.6379.4259.37556.999 20 Lee Joo-Hyung 114.647 9.3759.6129.7129.6379.6009.05056.986 21 Krasimir Dounev 113.898 9.1259.5009.5759.5879.4759.71256.974 22 Zoltán Supola 113.498 8.8759.7129.5259.5509.72556.962 23 Jan-Peter Nikiferow 113.198 9.5879.4509.4009.4379.37556.824 24 Alexei Voropaev 115.136 9.6878.4009.7379.6629.6259.71256.823 25 Ilia Giorgadze 111.199 9.5259.5129.3259.3759.4509.61256.799 26 Sébastien Tayac 113.086 9.5629.4259.5259.2009.47556.699 27 Boris Preti 112.761 9.3509.3509.5129.2509.5129.68756.661 28 Roberto Galli 112.336 9.6258.9509.5629.3509.4259.53756.449 29 John Macready 112.374 8.5259.5379.5379.5629.4879.56256.210 30 Andrey Kan 114.361 9.6009.6759.5629.5258.6009.00055.962 Vitaly Rudnitsky 112.625 9.6759.7009.6009.5129.3508.125 32 Dimitar Lunchev 112.162 9.2009.6629.2759.3009.4629.00055.899 33 Frédérick Nicolas 111.500 9.3508.7509.5009.2259.5009.53755.862 34 Hann Yoon-Soo 113.499 9.3009.7379.5129.3009.6128.37555.836 35 Brennon Dowrick 110.500 9.2009.6009.4000.0009.2509.45046.900 36 Volodymyr Shamenko 113.486 37 Patrice Casimir 113.424 colspan=7 rowspan=9 38 Adrian Ianculescu 113.136 39 Nicu Stroia 112.874 40 Toshiharu Sato 112.787 41 Oliver Walther 112.562 42 Kalofer Khristozov 111.300 43 Nistor Șandro 111.062 44 Aleksey Dmitriyenko 110.650 45 Shigeru Kurihara 110.512 46 Sergey Fedorchenko 110.475 colspan=7 rowspan=66 47 Deyan Yordanov 110.387 48 Donghua Li 110.212 Szilveszter Csollány 50 Norayr Sargsyan 110.211 51 Bret Hudson 110.162 52 Ioannis Melissanidis 109.975 53 Michael Engeler 109.687 54 Takashi Uchiyama 109.600 55 Lee McDermott 109.300 56 Alan Nolet 109.100 57 Aleksej Demjanov 108.762 58 Jiří Fiřt 108.512 59 Dominic Brindle 107.875 60 Erich Wanner 106.449 61 Flemming Solberg 105.900 62 Krisztián Jordanov 105.787 63 Richard Ikeda 105.400 64 Fan Bin 105.223 65 Jair Lynch 104.574 66 Yevgeny Podgorny 104.423 67 Diego Lizardi 104.412 68 Rúnar Alexandersson 104.337 69 Kris Burley 104.300 70 Marcelo Palacio 104.025 71 Huang Huadong 103.536 72 Aleksandr Belanovsky 103.512 73 Shane de Freitas 103.375 74 Barry McDonald 102.850 75 Karsten Oelsch 100.461 76 Kim Dong-hwa 100.437 77 Paolo Bucci 96.398 78 Dmitri Vasilenko 95.423 79 Jeong Jin-su 95.086 80 Kip Simons 94.461 81 Sergio Luini 93.537 82 Yeo Hong-cheol 93.486 83 Oleh Kosiak 93.250 84 Pae Gil-su 92.737 85 Frédéric Lemoine 92.287 86 Jo Seong-min 91.687 87 Sergey Kharkov 86.648 88 Nikolay Kryukov 86.336 89 Ivan Ivanov 86.147 90 Huang Liping 85.837 91 Dmitry Trush 85.449 92 Aleksandr Shostak 85.187 93 Éric Poujade 84.836 94 Sébastien Darrigade 84.162 95 Chainey Umphrey 84.112 96 Ivan Pavlovsky 83.086 97 Marcello Barbieri 82.787 98 Robert Tăciulet 82.575 99 Marius Urzică 76.099 100 Yuriy Yermakov 75.612 101 Uwe Billerbeck 75.399 102 Thiérry Aymes 75.361 103 Aleksey Sinkevich 66.400 104 Dan Burincă 65.800 105 Kim Bong-hyeon 63.937 106 Hryhoriy Misiutin 57.812 107 Francesco Colombo 56.287 108 Mihai Bagiu 55.861 109 Fan Hongbin 48.124 110 Marius Tobă 45.100 111 Vasil Vetsev 28.200
References
External links Official Olympic Report www.gymnasticsresults.com