The men's rings competition was one of eight events for male competitors in artistic gymnastics at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona. The qualification and final rounds took place on 29 July and 2 August 1992 at the Palau Sant Jordi. There were 93 competitors from 25 nations, with nations in the team event having 6 gymnasts while other nations could have up to 3 gymnasts. The event was won by Vitaly Scherbo of the Unified Team, the fourth time in five Games that a Soviet or former Soviet gymnast won the rings. Li Jing of China earned silver. There was a tie for third, with Andreas Wecker of Germany and Li Xiaoshuang of China each receiving bronze medals. It was the first medal for unified Germany since 1936, though East Germany had won gold and bronze in 1988.
Background
This was the 18th 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). Two of the eight finalists from 1988 returned: bronze medalist Sven Tippelt of East Germany and fourth-place finisher Kalofer Khristozov of Bulgaria. The reigning (1991) world champion was Grigory Misutin of the Unified Team. Wecker had placed second in both 1989 and 1991.
Puerto Rico and Slovenia each made their debut in the men's rings; some former Soviet Republics competed as the Unified Team. The United States made its 16th appearance, most of any nation; the Americans had missed only the inaugural 1896 rings 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 top eight gymnasts, with a limit of two per nation, advanced to the final. In a change from previous years, the preliminary score had no effect on the final; once the eight finalists were selected, their ranking depended only on the final exercise. Non-finalists were ranked 9th through 93rd based on preliminary score.Official Report, vol. 5, p. 217.
Schedule
All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+2)
Date Time Round Wednesday, 29 July 1992 Preliminary Sunday, 2 August 1992 21:30 Final
Results
Rank Gymnast Nation Preliminary Final Compulsory Voluntary Total Vitaly Scherbo 9.900 9.900 19.800 9.937 Li Jing 9.875 9.775 19.650 9.875 Li Xiaoshuang 9.900 9.725 19.625 9.862 Andreas Wecker 9.900 9.850 19.750 9.862 5 Valery Belenky 9.875 9.800 19.675 9.825 6 Szilveszter Csollány 9.875 9.800 19.675 9.800 7 Yukio Iketani 9.875 9.725 19.600 9.762 8 Kalofer Hristozov 9.800 9.750 19.550 9.750
References
Official Olympic Report www.gymnasticsresults.com