The men's rings was a gymnastics event contested as part of the Gymnastics at the 1964 Summer Olympics programme at the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium.[1] The event was held on 18, 20, and 22 October. There were 128 competitors from 29 nations, with nations in the team competition having up to 6 gymnasts and other nations entering up to 3 gymnasts.[2] The event was won by Takuji Hayata of Japan, the nation's first victory in the rings after two Games with bronze medals. Silver went to Franco Menichelli of Italy, the nation's first rings medal since 1932. Boris Shakhlin of the Soviet Union took bronze, breaking a three-Games gold medal streak for the Soviets. Shakhlin was the fourth man to win multiple medals in the rings, adding to his 1960 silver.
Background
This was the 11th 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). Four of the six finalists from 1960 returned: silver medalist Boris Shakhlin of the Soviet Union, joint bronze medalists Velik Kapsazov of Bulgaria and Takashi Ono of Japan, and sixth-place finisher Yury Titov of the Soviet Union. Two-time gold medalist Albert Azaryan had retired. Titov had won the 1962 world championship, with Shakhlin and Yukio Endo of Japan tying for second place.[2]
Algeria, the Republic of China, Iran, and Mongolia each made their debut in the men's rings. The United States made its 10th appearance, most of any nation, having missed only the inaugural 1896 Games.
Competition format
The gymnastics all-around events continued to use the aggregation format. Each nation entered a team of six gymnasts or up to two 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; the top 6 in each apparatus participated in the finals; others were ranked 7th through 128th. For the apparatus finals, the all-around score for that apparatus was multiplied by one-half then added to the final round exercise score to give a final total.
Exercise scores ranged from 0 to 10, with the final total apparatus score from 0 to 20.[2][3]
Each gymnast competed in both compulsory and optional exercises, with the median scores from the four judges for the two sets of exercises were summed. This score was also used in calculating both individual all-around and team scores.
The top 6 advanced to the final for the apparatus, keeping half of their preliminary score to be added to their final score.
