Retrospective: The insanity of the men’s high bar final at Paris 2024

The Paris 2024 Olympics are over (sigh), and now we get to revel at the new batch of Olympic champions and medalists who have risen to the top against an unbelievably competitive lineup.

While the team and all-around finals were riveting, perhaps the most memorable moment of the men’s competition was the high bar final.

Going into the Games, the two clear favorites were defending Olympic high bar gold medalist Daiki Hashimoto and his friendly rival Zhang Boheng – two incredible high bar workers who have proven they can hit routines under enormous pressure.

These preconceptions were shattered when Hashimoto had an uncharacteristic fall on the event during qualifying, keeping him from the final and eliminating any hope of a medal on his signature event. Another podium favorite, 2022 world champion Brody Malone (USA), shared a similar story of heartbreak in qualification that also knocked him from the finals.

Despite these unexpected mishaps, the stage was set for a historic showdown.

Zhang qualified in first with a massive 15.133, with Tang Chia-Hung of Chinese Taipei two-tenths behind him and the daring Takaaki Sugino (JPN) another two-tenths back.

Those rankings only gave a tentative preview of what was to come, with scores resetting. The only routine that mattered was the one a gymnast did in the final.

Tang, the 2018 Asian Games high bar champion, was the first to go in the final. Competing a starkly original routine, he shocked the crowd with an early fall on his Cassina, setting the tone for what was to come. This wouldn’t define his routine, as Tang regrouped and finished beautifully, performing a perfect Tak full to Walstrom connection and sticking the landing cold for a 13.966 even with the fall. This score put him out of the running for gold, but, as fate would have it, not the podium.

After this rocky start, it was time for the newly coronated all-around champion Shinnosuke Oka to take the stage. Fresh off of gold with the team, gold in the all-around, and bronze on parallel bars, Oka was looking to extend his dominance and become the first male gymnast since 2000 to take home four or more medals in a single Olympic Games. While his difficulty was on the lower side of the stacked lineup, Oka’s near-flawless 8.633 execution – the highest E-score of the final by seven-tenths – earned him a 14.533. This tied his exact score from qualifying, which put him in fifth going into the final – an interesting fact to keep in mind going forward.

Following Oka was a competitor that came somewhat out of left field: 17-year-old Angel Barajas of Colombia. Capable of the highest difficulty score on high bar of the entire Olympic field, his goal was pretty straightforward: stay on the bar. What followed was an action-packed routine featuring a Tak half to layout Piatti connection, a Kovacs to Kolman connection, and a Cassina to boot. His form didn’t match that of Oka’s, but Barajas’ absurdly high difficulty gave him enough of a buffer to still emerge with a 14.533, tying Oka’s score and putting him in second after the execution tie break.

Next, it was Marios Georgiou of Cyprus, the 2022 European high bar champion and frequent medalist. A cleanly hit routine could easily propel him to the podium. This was looking like the case until his dismount, when an early tap shot him forward. Georgiou landed low and fell, receiving a score of 13.333 and putting him firmly outside of medal contention.

After this, Sugino had the chance to step in and seize the lead. Qualifying to the final in third, his dynamic 6.6 routine rivaled Barajas’ and gave him enough room for small errors. Opening with a Pegan, a front tuck with a half twist over the bar, Sugino caught the bar but slipped off with one hand before catching himself in the handstand. Even though he pulled the giant around, this hiccup threw off his timing and he fell hard on his next skill, becoming the second gymnast of the night to miss a Cassina after Tang. Touching the ground with his hand on the dismount cemented his disappointment, resulting in another tragically low score of 11.633.

Finally, it was time for the now-clear favorite, Zhang, to take the stage. The all-around silver medalist qualified to the final in first with an enormous 15.133, miles ahead of the 14.533 leading score shared by Oka and Barajas. All he had to do was put down another solid routine, something he had already done once in team finals when he put up a 14.733 and led China to the silver. The routine started out well, and everything was clean until the dismount. Eerily similar to Georgiou minutes before, Boheng went slightly long and took two huge steps forward before touching his hands on the ground. For a gymnast with such strong consistency, this fall was uncharacteristic in every sense of the word. As if the final couldn’t already get any more unbelievable, his score was a 13.966. Because this tied Tang in difficulty and execution exactly, there was no tie break and they shared third place with two more competitors to go.

Up next was Tin Srbic of Croatia, a high bar specialist boasting an Olympic silver medal from Tokyo and three world medals, including the 2017 world title. Competing another unique routine, he repeated Barajas’ Tak half to layout Piatti connection before unexpectedly tapping too late on the ensuing Piatti and falling. After another fall on his Tak full, he finished with an 11.333.

At last, there was one more competitor: Su Weide of China. After his two catastrophic falls during team final on high bar that kept China from gold, Su had the chance to redeem himself. His routine started flawlessly, with textbook Taks into a perfect Tkatchev sequence. He was on track for a medal until, just like so many other competitors that night, disaster struck. Just like Georgiou and Zhang, Su’s dismount was low, forcing him to touch his hands to the ground and count a fall. Even though his execution was just 0.033 lower than the two tied for third, Su’s lower difficulty brought his final score down to a 13.433.

With competition over, the strangest podium in recent gymnastics history was cemented, featuring just two scores shared by four medalists. At the top, of course, was Oka, who did, in fact, win his fourth medal of the Games with the gold. He also became the first man to win gold in the all-around, team, and on an apparatus in 32 years. With the silver was Barajas, Colombia’s first Olympic medalist in gymnastics. Sharing the bronze were Zhang and Tang, winning medals despite their falls.

The Paris high bar final easily stands as one of the most memorable of the Games, if not all-time. For 40 minutes, uncertainty and unlikely scenarios blossomed, leading to such incredible stories as Colombia’s first ever Olympic medal in gymnastics by the youngest male gymnast competing.

Even after six of the eight of the athletes fell, the competitive spirit lives on. With the updated Code of Points for the 2025-2028 quad getting ready to mold the next four years of routines, only time will tell what world-class high bar sets will look like going forward.