American sports fans are beaming after the USA’s men’s gymnastics team made its first group appearance on the Olympics podium since 2008 this Monday.
The men of USA won bronze during the gymnastics’ team finals in Paris, fending off competitors Great Britain and Ukraine for the third-place honor.
Already favored for the top spots, Japan’s athletes earned gold while China’s gymnasts took silver.
For the past three summer Olympics, Team USA has finished in fifth place, making Monday’s achievement all the sweeter.
The last time the United States won gold in the team events was back in at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
The possibility of medaling seemed up in the air after the USA’s shaky performance during team qualifiers on Saturday.
But competitors Asher Hong, Paul Juda, Brody Malone, Stephen Nedoroscik and Frederick Richard were able to pull things together by the time competition really counted.
The team event sees each qualifying nation send three athletes to compete in gymnastics’ six different disciplines: floor exercise, vault, pommel horse, still rings, high bar and parallel bars.
Each competitors’ score is added together to see which country comes out on top.
Following USA’s historic team win, several of America’s men’s gymnasts will face off in individual events over the coming week.
Richard and Juda are set to compete in the all-around final on Wednesday while Nedoroscik will try and tame the pommel horse on Saturday.
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