Men's Gymnastics Results 2012: Danell Leyva No Match for Kohei Uchimura

Danell Leyva entered the men's all-around finals at the 2012 London Games with the top qualifying score. He was outclassed in the finals, though, as Kohei Uchimura won the gold medal.

Leyva didn't have his best showing during the all-around competition, with a total score a little more than a half-point less than his qualifying marks. His biggest issue was the pommel horse, where he surrendered at least a full point due to a botched dismount.

Had he paired his top-10 qualifying round pommel score with the rest of his routine the results would have been different for Leyva. He would have won the silver medal.

Even with replacing Leyva's one bad performance with a very good performance from day one, he would have been over .6 points behind Uchimura. Those marks also include the gold-medal winner's mistake on the floor exercise...one that should have cost him a full point but likely only led to a half-point deduction.

There is something even more troubling when comparing Leyva to Uchimura. 

Leyva's best routines in the Olympics still aren't good enough to beat Uchimura.

The graph below, using data from london2012.com, compares Uchimura's gold medal performance to Leyva's Olympics as a whole. The scores reflect Leyva's apparatus scores in the finals and the qualifying round, and then takes the best routine per apparatus to create a best-case total.

Uchimura still wins gold, 92.690 to 92.230.

As long as Uchimura puts together a decent all-around performance, Leyva can't beat him.

The biggest issue for Leyva is his performance on the vault. It is not a good apparatus for him, which is a bad sign. The vault is the highest-scoring apparatus and gives the best opportunity for a gymnast to maximize his overall score.

Leyva steps onto the floor surrendering a half-point from the start because of his lower degree of difficulty, and some gymnasts have a starting value up to .8 points higher than Leyva.

Uchimura scored .7 higher than Leyva on the vault, helping to solidify his victory.

There is still time for Leyva to elevate his performance and attempt to catch Uchimura. It's obviously too late for 2012, but these two will meet again in competition. 

If Leyva wants to catch Uchimura, he'll need to start with the vault.

	Floor	Pommel Horse	Rings	Vault	Par. Bars	Horiz. Bar	Total Score
Uchimura-Finals	15.100	15.066	15.333	16.266	15.325	15.600	92.690
Leyva-Finals	15.366	13.500	14.733	15.566	15.833	15.700	90.698
Leyva-Qualifying	15.100	14.866	14.600	15.500	15.333	15.866	91.265
Leyva-Best Scores	15.366	14.866	14.733	15.566	15.833	15.866	92.230