Scotland fall agonisingly short of artistic gymnastics podium finish as session overshadowed by serious injury

Team Scotland - comprising of Cameron Lynn, Hamish Carter, Reuben Ward, Connor Sullivan and Pavel Karnejenko - entered the Games’ full of optimism and looking to improve upon their fifth-place finish achieved in the team event at Birm­ing­ham 2022.

They did just that, but fell agonisingly short of achieving a podium finish. Canada claimed their first event gold in 20 years, with England taking the runners-up position and Australia in third.

“We’re gutted to fall short but I’m extremely proud of this team and the support we received was amazing,” said team captain Lynn. “Fourth place is an improvement on Birmingham and we wanted to perform well in front of our home support.”

Competing across six disciplines - the floor, pommel horse, rings, vault, parallel bars and horizontal bar - with a view to helping their team achieve a medal and securing their own spot in the individual finals, judges cast their scores based on difficulty and execution. Spectators were spoiled for choice.

The men’s competition was split into three sub divisions, with Scotland’s gymnasts lining up in the final evening session alongside fellow ‘big guns’ England, Wales, Canada, Cyprus and Australia as each nation looked to emulate pacesetting India’s points total of 208,550 amassed earlier in the day.

Hopes were high for last year’s British all-round champion Ward as Scotland began their first rotation on the floor. He produced a near flawless routine before Lynn and Ward both delivered excellent displays on the pommel horse to confirm their place in the individual final and send the noisy home crowd wild.

Rings prove Scotland’s nemesis in latest near-miss

However, Scotland’s nemesis proved to be the rings, with Lynn and the evergreen Carter both taking unfortunate tumbles as they dismounted to leave the host nation playing catch up at the half-way point.

In true elite sport fashion, though, Scotland knew it could all change in an instant with a strong performance on the vault. They needed to find three points on the podium, and West Lothian star Lynn did his utmost to close the gap with an excellent showing, nailing the landing after two-and-a-half twists.

The Scots still had plenty of work to do to finish among the medals and crowd favourite Ward ramped up the atmosphere after mastering the penultimate rotation, parallel bars, scoring 13.500 before cupping his ears and clenching his fist in delight.

Scotland remained in the hunt for bronze, but required near-perfect routines from all five men combined with some mistakes from Australia to sneak into third place.

The evening was overshadowed by a serious injury to 19-year-old Gabriel Langton of England, who had to be taken off on a stretcher after losing his grip and landing awkwardly on the floor mat. It was a horrific fall and led to a 15-minute delay to proceedings.

When the action resumed, Scotland had to refocus. It was crunch time. And by word did they saved their best for last with Lynn, Carter, Ward and Sullivan all coming up clutch with faultless performances on the horizontal bar to blow the roof off the arena and heap pressure on the Aussies.

But it wasn’t enough as Australia held their nerve on the pommel horse to consign the Scots to fourth place and a final points total of 234,300 - missing out on bronze by a mere 1.350 points.