Historic Zonderland on the horizontal bar
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Holland's Epke Zonderland stunned the crowd at the
North Greenwich Arena with an electric performance on the horizontal bar
to win Olympic gold.
The 26-year-old pulled off the most
difficult release combination - a Cassina to Kovacs to Kolman - in a
spectacular performance to score 16.533 and claim his first Olympic
title.Defending Olympic champion Zou Kai of China produced a near-perfect routine with a huge difficulty tariff but could only finish in bronze medal position as Germany's Fabian Hambuchen claimed silver.
It meant Zonderland became Holland's first male gymnast in history to win an Olympic medal.
American all-around bronze medallist Danell Leyva was first up and set a good marker with a routine packed full of showmanship to score 15.833.
China's Zhang Chenlong was next, fresh from his parallel bars final, and exploded into the lead with a thrilling performance which scored a huge 16.266 - including a massive 7.7 difficulty tariff.
Russia's Emin Garibov was solid before defending Olympic and world champion Zou took to the bar.
Zou produced a breathtaking routine of his own to move into the lead, beating his team-mate with a spectacular 7.9 points in the difficulty stakes.
Hambuchen, a bronze medallist in 2008, then nailed his routine and displayed near execution to rocket into the lead to huge cheers from the crowd.
In what was shaping up to be one of the most hotly contested horizontal bar finals of all time, Zonderland, the top qualifier for the final, knew he had to produce his best to claim gold and he did just that.
The European high bar champion pulled off the most difficult combinations in a show-stopping routine to fire past Hambuchen and into gold medal position.
American Jonathan Horton, who was pipped for gold by Zou in Beijing, and South Korean Kim Jihoon were unable to make a dent in the top three, as Zonderland re-wrote the history books.
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