The men's horizontal bar competition was one of eight events for male competitors in artistic gymnastics at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. The qualification and final rounds took place on September 18, 20 and 24th at the Olympic Gymnastics Hall. There were 89 competitors from 23 nations, with nations competing in the team event having 6 gymnasts and other nations having up to 3 gymnasts. There were ties for both gold and bronze medals. The Soviet Union took two golds, as Vladimir Artemov and Valeri Liukin finished even at the top spot; they were the Soviets' first gold medals in the horizontal bar since 1968, and moved the Soviet Union past the United States and Switzerland into second most all-time golds in the event (after Japan with six). Bronze medals went to Holger Behrendt of East Germany and Marius Gherman of Romania, the first medal in the event for both nations. It was the first time since 1964 that Japanese gymnasts competed but did not win the event.

Background

This was the 17th 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). Only one of the eight finalists from 1984 returned: fourth-place finisher Lou Yun of China. Dmitry Bilozerchev of the Soviet Union was the reigning (1987) world champion, with the rest of the worlds podium consisting of Canadian Curtis Hibbert (silver), East German Holger Behrendt, and Hungarian Zsolt Borkai (the latter two tied for bronze).

Chinese Taipei made its debut in the men's horizontal bar. The United States made its 15th appearance, 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. Half of the preliminary score carried over to the final. The 1984 Games had expanded the number of finalists from six to eight. Nations were still limited to two finalists each. Others were ranked 9th through 89th. Official Report, vol. 2, p. 429.

Schedule

All times are Korea Standard Time adjusted for daylight savings (UTC+10)

Date Time Round Sunday, 18 September 1988 Preliminary: Compulsory Tuesday, 20 September 1988 Preliminary: Voluntary Saturday, 24 September 1988 14:50 Final

Results

Eighty-nine gymnasts competed in the horizontal bar event during the compulsory and optional rounds on September 18 and 20. The eight highest scoring gymnasts advanced to the final on September 24. 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.

Rank Gymnast Nation Preliminary Final Compulsory Voluntary Total Prelim. Final Total Vladimir Artemov 9.90 10.00 19.90 9.950 9.950 19.900 Valeri Liukin 9.90 9.95 19.85 9.925 9.975 19.900 Holger Behrendt 9.75 9.95 19.70 9.850 9.950 19.800 Marius Gherman 9.80 9.90 19.70 9.850 9.950 19.800 5 Wang Chongsheng 9.90 9.85 19.75 9.875 9.900 19.775 6 Xu Zhiqiang 9.90 9.80 19.70 9.850 9.850 19.700 7 Curtis Hibbert 9.80 9.90 19.70 9.850 9.825 19.675 8 Andreas Wecker 9.80 9.90 19.70 9.850 9.650 19.500 9 Csaba Fajkusz 9.75 9.90 19.65 Did not advance Yukio Iketani 9.90 9.75 19.65 Did not advance Daisuke Nishikawa 9.80 9.85 19.65 Did not advance 12 Li Ning 9.80 9.80 19.60 Did not advance Koichi Mizushima 9.85 9.75 19.60 Did not advance Vladimir Novikov 9.70 9.90 19.60 Did not advance 15 Philippe Chartrand 9.75 9.80 19.55 Did not advance Stoyko Gochev 9.75 9.80 19.55 Did not advance Vladimir Gogoladze 9.65 9.90 19.55 Did not advance Sergey Kharkov 9.65 9.90 19.55 Did not advance Patrick Mattioni 9.75 9.80 19.55 Did not advance Balázs Tóth 9.80 9.75 19.55 Did not advance 21 Ralf Büchner 9.70 9.80 19.50 Did not advance Kalofer Khristozov 9.70 9.80 19.50 Did not advance Charles Lakes 9.80 9.70 19.50 Did not advance 24 Zsolt Borkai 9.80 9.65 19.45 Did not advance Christian Chevalier 9.65 9.80 19.45 Did not advance Dimitar Taskov 9.65 9.80 19.45 Did not advance Marius Toba 9.65 9.80 19.45 Did not advance Brad Peters 9.75 9.70 19.45 Did not advance Lance Ringnald 9.70 9.75 19.45 Did not advance 30 Thierry Pecqueux 9.70 9.70 19.40 Did not advance 31 Dmitry Bilozerchev 9.90 9.45 19.35 Did not advance Li Chunyang 9.65 9.70 19.35 Did not advance Lou Yun 9.80 9.55 19.35 Did not advance Park Jong-Hoon 9.65 9.70 19.35 Did not advance 35 Alfonso Rodríguez 9.50 9.80 19.30 Did not advance Hiroyuki Konishi 9.70 9.60 19.30 Did not advance Adrian Sandu 9.60 9.70 19.30 Did not advance 38 Gyorgy Guczoghy 9.55 9.70 19.25 Did not advance Ulf Hoffmann 9.55 9.70 19.25 Did not advance Zsolt Horváth 9.60 9.65 19.25 Did not advance Johan Jonasson 9.55 9.70 19.25 Did not advance Ju Yeong-sam 9.60 9.65 19.25 Did not advance Alan Nolet 9.60 9.65 19.25 Did not advance Marian Rizan 9.50 9.75 19.25 Did not advance Daniel Winkler 9.60 9.65 19.25 Did not advance Takahiro Yamada 9.60 9.65 19.25 Did not advance 47 James Rozon 9.65 9.55 19.20 Did not advance Sven Tippelt 9.80 9.40 19.20 Did not advance Deyan Kolev 9.60 9.60 19.20 Did not advance 50 Bruno Cavelti 9.60 9.55 19.15 Did not advance Sylvio Kroll 9.25 9.90 19.15 Did not advance 52 Nicolae Bejenaru 9.50 9.60 19.10 Did not advance Paolo Bucci 9.65 9.45 19.10 Did not advance Lubomir Geraskov 9.70 9.40 19.10 Did not advance Jenő Paprika 9.60 9.50 19.10 Did not advance 56 Boris Preti 9.80 9.25 19.05 Did not advance Toshiharu Sato 9.80 9.25 19.05 Did not advance 58 Andreas Aguilar 9.40 9.60 19.00 Did not advance Terry Bartlett 9.30 9.70 19.00 Did not advance Gabriele Sala 9.60 9.40 19.00 Did not advance Song Yu-jin 9.50 9.50 19.00 Did not advance Wes Suter 9.35 9.65 19.00 Did not advance 63 Petar Georgiev 9.50 9.45 18.95 Did not advance Dominick Minicucci 9.45 9.50 18.95 Did not advance 65 Valentin Pîntea 9.35 9.55 18.90 Did not advance 66 Jury Chechi 9.20 9.65 18.85 Did not advance Kevin Davis 9.60 9.25 18.85 Did not advance 68 Lorne Bobkin 9.75 9.05 18.80 Did not advance Riccardo Trapella 9.50 9.30 18.80 Did not advance 70 Guo Linxian 9.65 9.10 18.75 Did not advance Ralph Kern 9.45 9.30 18.75 Did not advance Frédéric Longuepée 9.25 9.50 18.75 Did not advance Gil Pinto 9.35 9.40 18.75 Did not advance 74 Vittorio Allievi 9.55 9.15 18.70 Did not advance 75 Claude Carmona 9.45 9.20 18.65 Did not advance Álvaro Montesinos 9.35 9.30 18.65 Did not advance Bernhard Simmelbauer 9.05 9.60 18.65 Did not advance 78 Mike Beckmann 9.45 9.15 18.60 Did not advance Miguel Ángel Rubio 8.80 9.80 18.60 Did not advance Josef Zellweger 9.50 9.10 18.60 Did not advance 81 Stéphane Cauterman 8.90 9.60 18.50 Did not advance 82 Scott Johnson 8.75 9.60 18.35 Did not advance 83 Chang Chao-chun 9.00 8.95 17.95 Did not advance 84 Kenneth Meredith 8.75 9.15 17.90 Did not advance 85 Jürgen Brümmer 8.55 9.30 17.85 Did not advance 85 Jože Kolman 8.25 9.60 17.85 Did not advance 87 Andrew Morris 8.80 8.80 17.60 Did not advance 88 Hélder Pinheiro 9.20 8.35 17.55 Did not advance 89 Tony Piñeda 9.50 2.00 11.50 Did not advance

References

Official Olympic Report www.gymnasticsresults.com