Australian men’s artistic gymnast Brody-Jai Hennessy has qualified for the horizontal bar apparatus final, following a day of highs and lows at the Youth Olympic Games.
Australian men’s artistic gymnast Brody-Jai Hennessy has qualified for the horizontal bar apparatus final, following a day of highs and lows at the Youth Olympic Games.
Hennessy, competing in the All Around qualification, was hoping to produce a clean routine on all six apparatus to ‘hopefully sneak’ a place in the 18-man All Around final on Wednesday.
He had reduced his degree of difficulty to optimise his chances for the All Around final instead of risking individual apparatus qualification.
The 15-year-old from Brisbane excelled on the first four apparatus (Rings 13.750, Vault 14.950, Parallel Bars 13.250, Horizontal Bar 13.800) and was sitting sixth of 21 gymnasts in the first group before coming undone on the final two apparatus.
His chances of making the All Around final were dashed with a fall on his floor exercise and a mistake on the pommel horse.
He was sitting in 15th (79.750) with a further 21 gymnasts to follow later in the evening session. He was 6.350 points behind the Chinese leader and that meant Hennessy’s campaign appeared all but over in one session.
“Overall my performance was alright except the silly mistake on the floor,” Hennessy said after the competition.
“That is probably one of my best comps of the year and I’m happy to do that here with so much pressure. I’m really pleased with not losing composure after my fall which is what I normally do.
“I’ll just miss out on All Around Final but I’m pretty pleased. I’m ranked pretty well in the high bar but it probably won’t be enough for a top eight final.”
So Hennessy arranged to meet his dad and go shopping in Singapore.
Australian coach Sergeui Chinkar summed up the qualifying session.
“I’m not 100 per cent happy, but happy,” Chinkar said. “Still. Even after fall on the floor he stayed composed and happy. It was a different Brody today.
“He is ranked sixth in high bar so only lots of other gymnasts falling in next division will get Brody through,” he joked innocently.
But falter they did and hours after Hennessy completed his routines it was confirmed that he had qualified eighth for the horizontal bar final on a countback. His 13.800 was the same as three other competitors but he had the least deductions so he was through.
Late on Monday night Chinker had yet to raise his young star to tell him the good news.
“He might be asleep or still with his dad so he still doesn’t know the great news,” Chinker beamed late at night.
“Now tomorrow we will start working towards the final with more difficulty. We take risk to give best chance of medal!”
Britain’s Sam Oldham was easily the best qualifier with 14.450 and two athletes equal second with 14.150.
Hennessy is drawn as the second competitor in the final on Sunday night and will go for broke with a more difficult routine than the one he used today.
Andrew Reid
AOC