Before the women’s beam final, eight men — including the American Sam Mikulak — will compete on the parallel bars. The gymnasts will swing between two bars that are about 11½ feet long and over 6 feet high. Like the women on uneven bars, the men make the task look easy.
“If Sam goes clean, he has a chance at medaling, but with the caveat that he needs some of the other people to falter,” said Kensley Behel, a men’s gymnastics expert who is part of the podcast Gymcastic.
Zou Jingyuan of China, who qualified to the final in first place, is “almost guaranteed the gold medal,” she said, acknowledging — as these Games have shown us — that nothing is ever certain in gymnastics.