Historic bronze for Team GB Gymnasts

Great Britain secured their first men’s Olympic team medal in a century after coming third in the final at the North Greenwich Arena.

Louis Smith, Max Whitlock, Daniel Purvis, Sam Oldham and Kristian Thomas combined to produce a superb team performance, posting a total of 271.711.

Britain at first thought they had claimed silver but an appeal from Japan bumped their scored up and knocked the host nation down onto the third step of the podium.

Defending champions China took gold by a comfortable margin ahead of the closely-matched teams of Japan, Britain and Ukraine, who originally finished third but were denied a medal due to the successful protest from Japan.

Ukraine were in bronze medal position and Japan in silver with the final rotation to go, but brilliant performances on the floor by Whitlock, Purvis and Thomas saw them seal their place on the podium.

The amended result put a slight downer on what was otherwise a fantastic afternoon for Britain, with the home crowd sounding their displeasure after the correction was made.

But a medal of any colour would has exceeded all expectations for the British team, who were going up against gymnastics powerhouses of the United States, Russia, China and Japan.

In a tense finale, it looked as if they had done enough to secure bronze after going head-to-head with Ukraine on the last piece of apparatus as the United States faded away.

And in an incredible bonus they leap-frogged Japan as three-time world champion Kohei Uchimura fluffed his pommel horse routine.

But as Japan made an inquiry, which centred on whether or not Uchimura’s dismount had been properly credited, with the result finally coming through after a long delay.