Parallel bars at the Olympics

Parallel bars at the Olympic Games
Parallel bars competition at the 1896 Summer Olympics
Overview
Sport	Artistic gymnastics
Gender	Men
Years held	Men: 1896, 1904, 1924–2024
Reigning champion
Men	Zou Jingyuan (CHN)

The parallel bars is an artistic gymnastics event held at the Summer Olympics. The event was first held for men at the first modern Olympics in 1896. It was held again in 1904, but not in 1900, 1908, 1912, or 1920 when no apparatus events were awarded medals. The parallel bars was one of the components of the men's artistic individual all-around in 1900, 1908, and 1912, however. The men's parallel bars returned as a medal event in 1924 and has been held every Games since. Parallel bars scores were included in the individual all-around for 1924 and 1928, with no separate apparatus final. In 1932, the parallel bars was entirely separate from the all-around. From 1936 to 1956, there were again no separate apparatus finals with the parallel bars scores used in the all-around. Beginning in 1960, there were separate apparatus finals.

The 1896 Games also featured a team parallel bars event.

Medalists

Men

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1896 Athens	Alfred Flatow  Germany	Louis Zutter  Switzerland	Not awarded
1900 Paris	Not held
1904 St. Louis	George Eyser  United States	Anton Heida  United States	John Duha  United States
1908 London	Not held
1912 Stockholm	Not held
1920 Antwerp	Not held
1924 Paris	August Güttinger  Switzerland	Robert Pražák  Czechoslovakia	Giorgio Zampori  Italy
1928 Amsterdam	Ladislav Vácha  Czechoslovakia	Josip Primožič  Yugoslavia	Hermann Hänggi  Switzerland
1932 Los Angeles	Romeo Neri  Italy	István Pelle  Hungary	Heikki Savolainen  Finland
1936 Berlin	Konrad Frey  Germany	Michael Reusch  Switzerland	Alfred Schwarzmann  Germany
1948 London	Michael Reusch  Switzerland	Veikko Huhtanen  Finland	Christian Kipfer  Switzerland Josef Stalder  Switzerland
1952 Helsinki	Hans Eugster  Switzerland	Viktor Chukarin  Soviet Union	Josef Stalder  Switzerland
1956 Melbourne	Viktor Chukarin  Soviet Union	Masumi Kubota  Japan	Takashi Ono  Japan Masao Takemoto  Japan
1960 Rome	Boris Shakhlin  Soviet Union	Giovanni Carminucci  Italy	Takashi Ono  Japan
1964 Tokyo	Yukio Endo  Japan	Shuji Tsurumi  Japan	Franco Menichelli  Italy
1968 Mexico City	Akinori Nakayama  Japan	Mikhail Voronin  Soviet Union	Viktor Klimenko  Soviet Union
1972 Munich	Sawao Kato  Japan	Shigeru Kasamatsu  Japan	Eizo Kenmotsu  Japan
1976 Montreal	Sawao Kato  Japan	Nikolai Andrianov  Soviet Union	Mitsuo Tsukahara  Japan
1980 Moscow	Aleksandr Tkachyov  Soviet Union	Alexander Dityatin  Soviet Union	Roland Brückner  East Germany
1984 Los Angeles	Bart Conner  United States	Nobuyuki Kajitani  Japan	Mitchell Gaylord  United States
1988 Seoul	Vladimir Artemov  Soviet Union	Valeri Liukin  Soviet Union	Sven Tippelt  East Germany
1992 Barcelona	Vitaly Scherbo  Unified Team	Li Jing  China	Igor Korobchinski  Unified Team Guo Linyao  China Masayuki Matsunaga  Japan
1996 Atlanta	Rustam Sharipov  Ukraine	Jair Lynch  United States	Vitaly Scherbo  Belarus
2000 Sydney	Li Xiaopeng  China	Lee Joo-Hyung  South Korea	Alexei Nemov  Russia
2004 Athens	Valeri Goncharov  Ukraine	Hiroyuki Tomita  Japan	Li Xiaopeng  China
2008 Beijing	Li Xiaopeng  China	Yoo Won-Chul  South Korea	Anton Fokin  Uzbekistan
2012 London	Feng Zhe  China	Marcel Nguyen  Germany	Hamilton Sabot  France
2016 Rio de Janeiro	Oleg Verniaiev  Ukraine	Danell Leyva  United States	David Belyavskiy  Russia
2020 Tokyo	Zou Jingyuan  China	Lukas Dauser  Germany	Ferhat Arıcan  Turkey
2024 Paris	Zou Jingyuan  China	Illia Kovtun  Ukraine	Shinnosuke Oka  Japan

Multiple medalists

Rank	Gymnast	Nation	Olympics	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	Li Xiaopeng	China (CHN)	2000–2008	2	0	1	3
2	Sawao Kato	Japan (JPN)	1972–1976	2	0	0	2
	Zou Jingyuan	China (CHN)	2020–2024	2	0	0	2
4	Michael Reusch	Switzerland (SUI)	1936–1948	1	1	0	2
	Viktor Chukarin	Soviet Union (URS)	1952–1956	1	1	0	2
6	Vitaly Scherbo	Unified Team (EUN)  Belarus (BLR)	1992–1996	1	0	1	2
7	Josef Stalder	Switzerland (SUI)	1948–1952	0	0	2	2
	Takashi Ono	Japan (JPN)	1956–1960	0	0	2	2

Medalists by country

Rank	Nation	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China (CHN)	5	1	2	8
2	Japan (JPN)	4	5	7	16
3	Soviet Union (URS)	4	5	1	10
4	Switzerland (SUI)	3	2	4	9
5	Ukraine (UKR)	3	1	0	4
6	United States (USA)	2	3	2	7
7	Germany (GER)	2	2	1	5
8	Italy (ITA)	1	1	2	4
9	Czechoslovakia (TCH)	1	1	0	2
10	Unified Team (EUN)	1	0	1	2
11	South Korea (KOR)	0	2	0	2
12	Finland (FIN)	0	1	1	2
13	Hungary (HUN)	0	1	0	1
	Yugoslavia (YUG)	0	1	0	1
15	East Germany (GDR)	0	0	2	2
	Russia (RUS)	0	0	2	2
17	Belarus (BLR)	0	0	1	1
	France (FRA)	0	0	1	1
	Turkey (TUR)	0	0	1	1
	Uzbekistan (UZB)	0	0	1	1

Gallery

1932

Heikki Savolainen, 1932

Sérgio Sasaki, 2016

Bart Deurloo, 2016

Illia Kovtun, 2024

Men's Parallel Bars at the Olympics

Team parallel bars

At the 1896 Olympics a team version of the parallel bars was held. It was one of two team apparatus events in 1896, along with the team horizontal bar. The team apparatus events were never held again.

The team parallel bar event had 10 sets of parallel bars for the team to use. Teams could be large, with one exceeding 30 members. Three teams competed, one from Germany and two from Greece. Judges scored the teams on execution, rhythm, and technical difficulty.

Games	Gold	Silver	Bronze
1896 Athens	Germany (GER)	Panellinios G.S. (GRE)	Ethnikos G.S. Athens (GRE)