U.S. gymnast Danell Leyva felt for Oleg Verniaiev after the Ukrainian finished a controversial second in the Rio Olympic all-around, .099 behind Japan’s Kohei Uchimura.
“What they did in the all-around was super unfair,” Leyva said on the Gymcastic podcast (10-minute mark). “I sincerely just feel like Oleg outperformed Uchimura in a couple of different events, in most events. We all know how political gymnastics is. I guess they were probably just like, yeah, we’ve got to give it to Uchi because it’s Uchi.”
Uchimura became the first gymnast to repeat as Olympic all-around champion in 44 years, adding to his collection that includes the last six world all-around titles.