Gymnastics at the 1988 Summer Olympics – Men's vault

The men's vault competition was one of eight events for male competitors in artistic gymnastics at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. The qualification and final rounds took place on September 18, 20 and 24th at the Olympic Gymnastics Hall. There were 89 competitors from 23 nations, with nations competing in the team event having 6 gymnasts and other nations having up to 3 gymnasts. The event was won by Lou Yun of China, the second man to successfully defend an Olympic title in the vault and fourth man to win two medals of any color in the event. Sylvio Kroll of East Germany took the silver medal, while Park Jong-hoon of South Korea earned his nation's first men's vault medal with his bronze.

Men's vault at the Games of the XXIV Olympiad
Artistic gymnastics pictogram
Venue	Olympic Gymnastics Hall
Date	18–24 September
Competitors	89 from 23 nations
Medalists
Lou Yun  China Sylvio Kroll  East Germany Park Jong-Hoon  South Korea

Background

This was the 17th appearance of the event, which is one of the five apparatus events held every time there were apparatus events at the Summer Olympics (no apparatus events were held in 1900, 1908, 1912, or 1920). Two of the eight finalists from 1984 returned, both of the Chinese finalists: gold medalist Lou Yun and one of the four silver medalists, Li Ning. Lou had finished second in the 1985 World Championships and shared gold with Sylvio Kroll of East Germany in the 1987 World Championships; the defending champion was heavily favored to repeat.

Chinese Taipei made its debut in the men's vault. The United States made its 15th appearance, most of any nation; the Americans had missed only the inaugural 1896 vault and the boycotted 1980 Games.

Competition format

The event used a "vaulting horse" aligned parallel to the gymnast's run (rather than the modern "vaulting table" in use since 2004). Each nation entered a team of six gymnasts or up to three individual gymnasts. All entrants in the gymnastics competitions performed both a compulsory exercise and a voluntary exercise for each apparatus. The scores for all 12 exercises were summed to give an individual all-around score. These exercise scores were also used for qualification for the apparatus finals. The two exercises (compulsory and voluntary) for each apparatus were summed to give an apparatus score. Half of the preliminary score carried over to the final. The 1984 Games had expanded the number of finalists from six to eight. Nations were still limited to two finalists each. Others were ranked 9th through 89th.

Schedule

All times are Korea Standard Time adjusted for daylight savings (UTC+10)

Date	Time	Round
Sunday, 18 September 1988		Preliminary: Compulsory
Tuesday, 20 September 1988		Preliminary: Voluntary
Saturday, 24 September 1988	13:40	Final

Results

Eighty-nine gymnasts competed in the vault event during the compulsory and optional rounds on September 18 and 20. The eight highest scoring gymnasts advanced to the final on September 24. Each country was limited to two competitors in the final. Half of the points earned by each gymnast during both the compulsory and optional rounds carried over to the final. This constitutes the "prelim" score.

Rank	Gymnast	Nation	Preliminary			Final
			Compulsory	Voluntary	Total	1⁄2 Prelim.	Final	Total
	Lou Yun	China	9.90	9.95	19.85	9.925	9.950	19.875
	Sylvio Kroll	East Germany	9.85	9.95	19.80	9.900	9.962	19.862
	Park Jong-Hoon	South Korea	9.85	9.75	19.60	9.800	9.975	19.775
4	Deyan Kolev	Bulgaria	9.80	9.85	19.65	9.825	9.912	19.737
5	Holger Behrendt	East Germany	9.80	9.90	19.70	9.850	9.800	19.650
6	Sergey Kharkov	Soviet Union	9.85	9.95	19.80	9.900	9.700	19.600
7	Yukio Iketani	Japan	9.90	9.75	19.65	9.825	9.700	19.525
8	Vladimir Gogoladze	Soviet Union	9.90	9.85	19.75	9.875	9.637	19.512
9	Vladimir Artemov	Soviet Union	9.85	9.80	19.65	Did not advance
10	Dmitri Bilozertchev	Soviet Union	9.80	9.80	19.60	Did not advance
	Ralf Büchner	East Germany	9.80	9.80	19.60	Did not advance
	Valeri Liukin	Soviet Union	9.70	9.90	19.60	Did not advance
13	Jürgen Brümmer	West Germany	9.85	9.70	19.55	Did not advance
	Sven Tippelt	East Germany	9.75	9.80	19.55	Did not advance
15	Marius Gherman	Romania	9.70	9.80	19.50	Did not advance
	Wang Chongsheng	China	9.65	9.85	19.50	Did not advance
	Xu Zhiqiang	China	9.80	9.70	19.50	Did not advance
18	Gyorgy Guczoghy	Hungary	9.75	9.70	19.45	Did not advance
	Curtis Hibbert	Canada	9.70	9.75	19.45	Did not advance
	Ulf Hoffmann	East Germany	9.70	9.75	19.45	Did not advance
	Dimitar Taskov	Bulgaria	9.65	9.80	19.45	Did not advance
22	Terry Bartlett	Great Britain	9.80	9.60	19.40	Did not advance
	Patrick Mattioni	France	9.75	9.65	19.40	Did not advance
	Daisuke Nishikawa	Japan	9.75	9.65	19.40	Did not advance
	Alfonso Rodríguez	Spain	9.80	9.60	19.40	Did not advance
26	Lorne Bobkin	Canada	9.70	9.65	19.35	Did not advance
	Zsolt Borkai	Hungary	9.80	9.55	19.35	Did not advance
	Guo Linxian	China	9.65	9.70	19.35	Did not advance
	Zsolt Horváth	Hungary	9.65	9.70	19.35	Did not advance
	Koichi Mizushima	Japan	9.70	9.65	19.35	Did not advance
	Toshiharu Sato	Japan	9.70	9.65	19.35	Did not advance
	Song Yu-jin	South Korea	9.85	9.50	19.35	Did not advance
33	Jury Chechi	Italy	9.70	9.60	19.30	Did not advance
	Petar Georgiev	Bulgaria	9.60	9.70	19.30	Did not advance
	Ralph Kern	West Germany	9.80	9.50	19.30	Did not advance
	Kalofer Khristozov	Bulgaria	9.65	9.65	19.30	Did not advance
	Marius Toba	Romania	9.70	9.60	19.30	Did not advance
	Andreas Wecker	East Germany	9.65	9.65	19.30	Did not advance
39	Mike Beckmann	West Germany	9.65	9.60	19.25	Did not advance
	Vladimir Novikov	Soviet Union	9.80	9.45	19.25	Did not advance
	Jenő Paprika	Hungary	9.65	9.60	19.25	Did not advance
42	Csaba Fajkusz	Hungary	9.50	9.70	19.20	Did not advance
	Scott Johnson	United States	9.50	9.70	19.20	Did not advance
	Charles Lakes	United States	9.60	9.60	19.20	Did not advance
	James Rozon	Canada	9.60	9.60	19.20	Did not advance
46	Lyubomir Gueraskov	Bulgaria	9.60	9.55	19.15	Did not advance
	Hiroyuki Konishi	Japan	9.55	9.60	19.15	Did not advance
	Boris Preti	Italy	9.75	9.40	19.15	Did not advance
	Bernhard Simmelbauer	West Germany	9.65	9.50	19.15	Did not advance
50	Paolo Bucci	Italy	9.60	9.50	19.10	Did not advance
	Li Chunyang	China	9.50	9.60	19.10	Did not advance
	Álvaro Montesinos	Spain	9.55	9.55	19.10	Did not advance
	Brad Peters	Canada	9.60	9.50	19.10	Did not advance
	Lance Ringnald	United States	9.40	9.70	19.10	Did not advance
	Gabriele Sala	Italy	9.50	9.60	19.10	Did not advance
	Adrian Sandu	Romania	9.70	9.40	19.10	Did not advance
	Daniel Winkler	West Germany	9.50	9.60	19.10	Did not advance
58	Ju Yeong-sam	South Korea	9.75	9.30	19.05	Did not advance
	Alan Nolet	Canada	9.45	9.60	19.05	Did not advance
60	Claude Carmona	France	9.50	9.50	19.00	Did not advance
	Christian Chevalier	France	9.70	9.30	19.00	Did not advance
	Johan Jonasson	Sweden	9.50	9.50	19.00	Did not advance
	Thierry Pecqueux	France	9.50	9.50	19.00	Did not advance
	Valentin Pîntea	Romania	9.60	9.40	19.00	Did not advance
	Wes Suter	United States	9.50	9.50	19.00	Did not advance
	Takahiro Yamada	Japan	9.40	9.60	19.00	Did not advance
67	Vittorio Allievi	Italy	9.45	9.45	18.90	Did not advance
	Stoyko Gochev	Bulgaria	9.30	9.60	18.90	Did not advance
	Jože Kolman	Yugoslavia	9.50	9.40	18.90	Did not advance
	Frédéric Longuepée	France	9.70	9.20	18.90	Did not advance
	Kenneth Meredith	Australia	9.40	9.50	18.90	Did not advance
	Riccardo Trapella	Italy	9.30	9.60	18.90	Did not advance
73	Nicolae Bejenaru	Romania	9.35	9.50	18.85	Did not advance
	Stéphane Cauterman	France	9.35	9.50	18.85	Did not advance
	Chang Chao-chun	Chinese Taipei	9.15	9.70	18.85	Did not advance
	Dominick Minicucci Jr.	United States	9.50	9.35	18.85	Did not advance
77	Andrew Morris	Great Britain	9.35	9.45	18.80	Did not advance
	Josef Zellweger	Switzerland	9.30	9.50	18.80	Did not advance
79	Bruno Cavelti	Switzerland	9.50	9.25	18.75	Did not advance
	Kevin Davis	United States	9.30	9.45	18.75	Did not advance
	Marian Rizan	Romania	9.40	9.35	18.75	Did not advance
	Miguel Ángel Rubio	Spain	9.60	9.15	18.75	Did not advance
83	Gil Pinto	Brazil	9.40	9.30	18.70	Did not advance
84	Philippe Chartrand	Canada	9.45	9.15	18.60	Did not advance
85	Andreas Aguilar	West Germany	9.35	9.20	18.55	Did not advance
86	Li Ning	China	9.25	9.15	18.40	Did not advance
87	Tony Piñeda	Mexico	9.05	9.25	18.30	Did not advance
88	Hélder Pinheiro	Portugal	8.80	9.15	17.95	Did not advance
89	Balázs Tóth	Hungary	9.70	0.00	9.70	Did not advance

References

• Official Olympic Report
• www.gymnasticsresults.com