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Rio de Janeiro >> One step. One little hop at the end of the final routine of the final rotation at the end of more than two hours of an edge of your seat, breathtaking Olympic Games men’s all around final decided the gold medal. One step on Oleg Veiaiev of the Ukraine’s dismount on the high bar was the difference in Japan’s Kohei Uchimura defending his Olympic title and Veiaiev landing in a lifetime of being haunted by what if’s? “It was so close, the gold,” Veiaiev said. So close that the final margin between Uchimura and Veiaiev at the Rio Olympic Arena Wednesday night was but nine hundreths of a point—92.365 to 92.266. By the slimmest of margins Uchimura extended his dominance over...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Kohei Uchimura’s gold-medal haul keeps growing. The superstar gymnast from Japan won the men’s all-around title Wednesday, edging Oleg Veiaiev by less than a tenth of the point to capture his second straight Olympic title. Uchimura trailed heading into the final rotation but put up a dazzling 15.8 on high bar. Veiaiev followed with a less challenging routine and hopped forward on the dismount. Needing 14.9 to win, Veiaiev instead eaed a 14.8. The crowd groaned when the score was revealed, though Veiaiev shrugged his shoulders as if to say “what can you do?” Max Whitlock of Great Britain was third, just ahead of Russia’s David Belyavskiy. Sam Mikulak of Newport Beach ...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Kohei Uchimura’s gold-medal haul keeps growing. The superstar gymnast from Japan won the men’s all-around title Wednesday, edging Oleg Veiaiev by less than a tenth of the point to capture his second straight Olympic title. Uchimura trailed heading into the final rotation but put up a dazzling 15.8 on high bar. Veiaiev followed with a less challenging routine and hopped forward on the dismount. Needing 14.9 to win, Veiaiev instead eaed a 14.8. The crowd groaned when the score was revealed, though Veiaiev shrugged his shoulders as if to say “what can you do?” Max Whitlock of Great Britain was third, just ahead of Russia’s David Belyavskiy. Sam Mikulak of Newport Beach ...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> In coaching national teams from two countries at a total of 11 Olympic Games, a career that spans nearly a half-century, U.S. national team director Martha Karolyi has cried only twice. The first time was when her first prodigy, Romania’s Nadia Comaneci, registered a perfect 10.0 at the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal. She cried again Tuesday night when, after Team USA delivered the retiring Karolyi a golden going away present in the form of the most dominant performance in Olympic gymnastics history, team members informed her that their new designation was a tribute to her. The Final Five. • PHOTOS: Team US...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Team USA repeated as Olympic women’s team gymnastics champion with a performance that was beyond fierce. The U.S. presented a convincing case as the greatest team in history at the Rio Olympic Arena Tuesday, rolling up 184.897 total points, more than the U.S. squad, the self-proclaimed Fierce Five put up in wiing the gold medal in London four years ago. The U.S.’ final gap over ruer-up Russia (176.688) also exceeded the 2012 team’s 5.056 margin of victory. China was third at 176.003. • PHOTOS: Team USA on Tuesday at the Rio Olympics The result was really not in doubt after the opening rotation f...

Rio de Janeiro >> The slimmest of medal chances rested in the hands of Danell Leyva, Team USA’s last man on the last rotation, the absolute last hope in the Olympic Games men’s gymnastics team all-around final Sunday. So Leyva chased the medal around and around the high bar, growing faster, more confident with each rotation. Aggressive, daring, through one of his best ever routines, Leyva was soaring. Then he wasn’t. Late in the routine he could not find his grip on the bar and fell, landing on both knees. For several moments he remained like that, kneeling, head down, a man, his prayers unanswered, now only searching for answers. “Disbelief, shock, obvious disappointment,” Leyva said...

RIO DE JANEIRO — For Team USA, the Olympic Games men’s team gymnastics final had a familiar ending. And begiing. The U.S., unable to overcome a series of early mistakes, finished fifth with a total score of 268.560 at the Rio Olympic Arena on Monday. Japan captured the gold medal. Monday was strikingly similar for the U.S., which won its qualifying group Saturday, to the meltdown the American men had four years ago in London. The U.S. men won their 2012 qualifying group only to slip to fifth in the final. Monday’s unraveling began in the opening seconds. Alexander Naddour, the first U.S. man up in the floor exercise on the first rotation, fell back on a landing and put a hand out of bounds....

RIO DE JANEIRO >> If U.S. gymnast Aly Raisman has trouble sleeping Monday night it wasn’t because she was conceed about the competition at the Olympic Games team final at the Rio Olympic Arena Tuesday afteoon. “Simone and Lauri will come in my room at 9:30 and I literally have to get them out at 9:50 because if they get too hyper I won’t be able to fall asleep,” Raisman said referring to teammates Simone Biles and Lauren Heandez and her 10 p.m. bedtime. Not that there won’t be some sleepless nights in the Olympic Village Monday. The question isn’t whether Team USA will win the gold medal but by how much. Even the official website of FIG, gymnastics’ worldwide goveing body, blared in a...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Team USA posted the highest Olympic Games qualifying round score by nearly 10 points as Simone Biles also kept her bid to become the first woman gymnast to win five gold medals in a single Olympics. A U.S. athlete posted the highest score on all four events to post a total score of 185.238. China had Sunday’s second highest score at 175.279. Biles had the highest individual all-around score (62.366) as well the top marks on the vault (16.050), balance beam (15.633) and floor exercise (15.733). The U.S. was so dominant that the next two athletes in the all-around standings were Biles’ teammates, Alexandra Raisman (60.607) and defending Olympic all-around champion Gabb...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Sam Mikulak isn’t a scoreboard watcher. Yet if the U.S. gymnast had allowed himself a glimpse of the giant video screens high above Rio Olympic Arena after the first four of six rotations in the second sub-division of the Olympic Games men’s team qualifying round Saturday, he would have not only found the U.S. atop the team standings but himself leading the individual all-around. “I try not to look at the scoreboard because that might set expectations in my head,” Mikulak said. “I just want to stay focused.” By the end of Saturday afteoon, Mikulak and his U.S. teammates could not ignore the expectations raised by a qualifying performance that only raised medal expect...

RIO DE JANEIRO >> Sam Mikulak isn’t a scoreboard watcher. Yet if the U.S. gymnast had allowed himself a glimpse of the giant video screens high above Rio Olympic Arena after the first four of six rotations in the second sub-division of the Olympic Games men’s team qualifying round Saturday, he would have not only found the U.S. atop the team standings but himself leading the individual all-around. “I try not to look at the scoreboard because that might set expectations in my head,” Mikulak said. “I just want to stay focused.” By the end of Saturday afteoon, Mikulak and his U.S. teammates could not ignore the expectations raised by a qualifying performance that only raised medal expect...